Engineering Biological Science - Processes and Systems for Haematopoietic Stem Cell Based Therapy Manufacture

传统上，脐带在分娩后作为医疗废物被丢弃。然而，在过去的几十年里，脐带中含有少量未成熟的血细胞，这些血细胞具有修复人体的强大功能，这一点已经变得很明显。脐带血现在经常被用来代替骨髓治疗儿童血癌（白血病）。脐带血细胞也可以生长，产生大量的红细胞或血小板用于输血，或者，如果经过不同的处理，可以产生免疫系统细胞。最近，脐带血已被证明对器官衰竭、儿童脑损伤或糖尿病等一系列严重疾病有效，或正在进行临床试验。尽管自20世纪90年代初以来就制定了国家脐带血收集和储存规划，但这些新的临床应用的成功将导致对已经紧张的脐带血库存的不可持续需求。在这项研究中，我打算开发工具，帮助从婴儿出生时采集的小样本中制造大量具有药用价值的脐带血细胞。这将形成一个人造血液相关生物制品产业的基础。我们将使用一种新技术在非常受控的条件下在小血管中培养细胞。这些血管将让我们快速有效地测试不同的物理条件（如氧气和酸度）和新的化学添加剂对血细胞生长的影响。我们将使用工程方法以新颖的方式控制细胞的环境，并了解细胞发育之间的关系。我们将展示必要的条件和系统，使这些细胞生长到大量和临床有用的数量。我们还将了解生产过程对重复生产安全有效细胞的容忍度。我提出的研究将帮助临床社区为英国的患者提供新的严重疾病治疗方法，并帮助在英国开发这些新型细胞治疗方法的重要新经济活动。

Umbilical cords are traditionally discarded after childbirth as medical waste. However, over the past few decades it has become apparent that the cord contains a small amount of immature blood cells with powerful properties to repair the human body. Cord blood is now frequently used instead of bone marrow to treat childhood blood cancers (leukaemia). Cord blood cells can also be grown to generate very large numbers of red blood cells or platelets for transfusion, or, if processed differently to create immune system cells. More recently cord blood has been proven effective, or is being clinically trialled, for a wide range of serious conditions such as organ failure, childhood brain damage or diabetes. Despite national cord blood collection and banking programmes since the early 1990's, the success of these new clinical applications will lead to unsustainable demand on already strained stocks of cord blood. In this Fellowship I intend to develop tools to help manufacture large quantities of medicinally valuable cord blood cells from the small samples retrieved at child birth. This will form the basis of a manufactured blood related bio-products industry.We will use a new technology to grow the cells in small vessels under very controlled conditions. These vessels will let us quickly and efficiently test different physical conditions (such as oxygen and acidity) and novel chemical additives on the growth of the blood cells. We will use engineering approaches to control the cells' environment in novel ways, and understand the relationships between the cells' development. We will demonstrate the conditions and systems that are necessary to grow these cells to large and clinically useful numbers. We will also understand how tolerant the manufacturing process is for repeated production of safe and effective cells. My proposed research will help the clinical community deliver a new cohort of treatments for serious diseases to patients in the UK as well as help develop an important new economic activity in the UK in the development of these new types of cell based therapies.