Investigation of optimal gel conditions for stem cell preservation at room temperature and scaling up of selected methodology

由于许多原因（财务，资源，科学等），负责任何再生治疗（RT）中活生物（LB）的制备/制造（细胞库，生长，培养，纯度和QA等）的卓越中心在地理上与使用点分开。因此，一个主要的挑战是将LB以经验证的、高质量的、“适合目的”的形式交付给诊所。在全球市场上，迫切需要将关键的LB特征保持至少几天到一周。虽然适合长期银行业务，但由于公认的对LB的负面影响，最终产品的冷冻不是一种选择。同样重要的是，该系统需要简单、快速和易于在护理点使用，以便于临床医生使用。我们最近的金砖四国授权赠款表明，藻酸盐凝胶细胞封装系统满足了许多这些需求。我们有越来越多的证据表明，它在室温条件下长时间保存多种细胞类型（包括干细胞）是有效的。然而，需要进一步的研究来充分了解它是如何工作的，并证明该技术可以在工业环境中实施（即可扩展）。

For numerous reasons (financial, resource, scientific etc) the centres of excellence responsible for the preparation/manufacture (cell banking, growth, culture, purity and QA etc) of the Living Biologic (LB) in any Regenerative Therapeutic (RT) are geographically separated to that of the point of use. Therefore, a major challenge is to deliver to the clinic the LB in a validated, quality, 'fit for purpose' form. Across the global market place there is a pressing need to retain the key LB characteristic for at least several days to one week. Although suitable for longer term banking, Cryofreezing for the final product is not an option due to the acknowledged negative effects on the LB. As important, the system needs to be simple, rapid and easy to use at the point of care in order to ease uptake by the clinician. Our recent BRIC enabling grant has shown that an alginate gel cell encapsulation system meets many of these needs. We have a growing body of evidence that demonstrates it is effective at preserving a number of cell types (including stem cells) over extended periods in room temperature conditions. However, further research is needed to fully understand how it works and demonstrate that the technology can be implemented in an industrial setting (i.e. scalable).