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。干细胞是一种能够成为人体内任何类型细胞的细胞。他称这种转化细胞为诱导多能干细胞(IPSCs)，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提取皮肤细胞，并用它来制造身体中的任何其他细胞，如心脏或脑细胞成为可能。这是药物开发的一个关键突破，因为药物现在可以针对以前需要侵入性活组织检查才能从患者体内提取的细胞进行测试。今天，与其他类型的细胞相比，采用IPSCs的一大限制是它们需要大量的体力劳动和专门的技术来培养。在这个项目中，我们将推出一台用于培养IPSCs的自动化机器，使其更容易培养和推广。

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.