Raman Spectroscopy Analysis to Improve the Validation of Cell Therapy Manufacturing Processes

新兴的细胞疗法有可能极大地改善个人的健康 **，并通过治愈疾病来降低医疗成本。例如，已经确定 ** 细胞移植疗法可以逆转并有可能治愈1型糖尿病。然而，相对于成千上万可以从这种疗法中受益的加拿大人来说，尸体捐赠者太少了。从培养的干细胞中产生胰岛（产生胰岛素的细胞）是一个令人兴奋的发展，它可以为糖尿病患者的移植提供基本上无限的供应。已经证明这些细胞可以在动物模型中逆转糖尿病，目前正在进行人体临床试验。然而，要使这种治疗糖尿病的方法成为现实，必须克服几个挑战。其中，改进用于生产这些细胞的复杂过程是至关重要的。例如，我们需要能够对培养物进行非侵入性（和无接触）** 监测的技术，以便生产的细胞保持安全和有效。我们的研究小组已经证明，新的光谱技术可以利用培养细胞散射的光收集关键信息，跟踪干细胞成为胰腺细胞时发生的关键发育变化。该项目将推进这种非侵入性技术，以便它可以用于评估和控制用于移植的干细胞衍生治疗细胞的质量。这将有助于开发和批准安全有效的 ** 疗法，有可能治愈成千上万的加拿大人。虽然第一个应用将针对糖尿病，但我们的技术也可以应用于许多其他针对疾病的细胞疗法，如癌症和心脏病细胞疗法。

Emerging cellular therapies have the potential to both greatly improve the health of individuals**and to reduce healthcare costs by curing diseases. For example, it has been established that**a cellular transplant therapy can reverse and potentially cure type 1 diabetes. However, there**are far too few cadaveric donors available relative to the many thousands of Canadians who**could benefit from this therapy. Generating pancreatic islets (insulin-generating cells) from**cultured stem cells is an exciting development that could provide an essentially unlimited**supply for transplantation into diabetic patients. It has already been demonstrated that these**cells can reverse diabetes in animal models, and a human clinical trial is currently underway.**However, several challenges must be overcome to make this cure for diabetes a reality.**Among them, improving the complex processes used to produce these cells is paramount.**For example, we need technologies capable of non-invasively (and without contact)**monitoring of the cultures so that the cells produced remain safe and effective. Our group has**shown that novel spectroscopic techniques can gather critical information using light scattered**by the cultured cells, tracking the critical developmental changes taking place as stem cells**become pancreatic cells. This project will advance this non-invasive technology so that it can**be used to assess and control the quality of stem cell-derived therapeutic cells destined for**transplantation. This will contribute to the development and approval of safe and efficacious**therapies with the potential of curing thousands of Canadians. While the first application will**target diabetes, our technology could also be applied to many other cell therapies that target**diseases such as cancer and heart disease cellular therapy.