Commercialisation of Fully-Automated iPSC Manufacturing System

2006年，Shinya Yamanaka教授发现了一种方法，可以通过将皮肤细胞转化为干细胞来逆转细胞的发育时钟-一种能够成为体内任何类型细胞的细胞。他将这种转化的细胞称为诱导多能干细胞（iPSC）--“多能”的意思是能够成为体内的任何细胞。这一革命性的发现使得从任何捐赠者身上获取皮肤细胞并使用它来产生任何其他细胞成为可能体内细胞，例如心脏或脑细胞。这是药物开发的一个关键突破，因为现在可以针对以前需要侵入性活检才能从患者体内取出的细胞（如心脏或脑细胞）进行药物测试。今天，采用iPSC的一个很大限制是，与其他类型的细胞相比，它们需要大量的体力劳动和专业技术才能生长。在这个项目中，我们将推出一种用于培养iPSC的自动化机器，使它们更容易生长并推动它们的采用。

In 2006, Prof. Shinya Yamanaka discovered a method by which one could turn back the developmental clock of a cell through converting a skin cell into a stem cell -- a cell that is capable of becoming any kind of cell in the body. He called this transformed cells induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) -- 'pluripotent' meaning capable of becoming any cell in the body.This revolutionary discovery made it possible to take a skin cell from any donor, and use it to produce any other cell in the body, such as heart or brain cells. This has been a critical breakthrough for drug development, because drugs can now be tested against cells that would have previously required intrusive biopsies to retrieve them from inside a patient, such as heart or brain cells.Today, a big limitation in the adoption of iPSCs has been that they require a lot of manual labour and specialised technique to grow, compared to other kinds of cells.In this project, we will launch an automated machine for growing iPSCs, to make them much easier to grow and drive their adoption.