Genea Stem Cells: 25 New Disease Specific Pluripotent Stem Cell Lines Placed on the NIH Registry

Genea Stem Cells Pty Ltd (GSC), a supplier and developer of disease-specific human stem cells, today announced that 25 of its disease specific embryonic pluripotent stem cell lines have been placed on the USA National Institutes of Health (NIH) human stem cell registry. These embryonic stem cell lines are now all available commercially for use in medical research.

These cell lines include one disease free pluripotent cell line and 24 others with individual mutations that give rise to several severe diseases such as cancer (breast cancer, Wilm’s tumor and Von Hippel–Lindau syndrome), Huntington’s disease, muscular dystrophy (including CMT, FSHD and Myotonic) and cystic fibrosis as well as some rarer genetic diseases such as Trisomy 5, macular dystrophy, incontinentia pigmenti, juvenile retinoschisis, alpha thalassemia and autosomal dominant torsion dystonia. All these cell lines are genetically unmodified and have been derived in compliance with international regulatory and ethical guidelines.

GSC has the world’s largest private bank of pluripotent human embryonic stem cells with more than 100 individual lines expressing almost 30 different genetic diseases. The company is also developing multiple differentiated cell lines from these pluripotent lines and currently offers GABAergic neurons and vascular smooth muscle cells. These are the only commercially available differentiated disease affected cell lines in the world and GSC is willing to work with drug developers globally to custom-make disease-specific differentiated cell lines for use in in vitro research.

Dr Uli Schmidt, General Manager of GSC, commented: “It is a tribute to all the hard work and diligence of our scientists in Sydney that so many of our lines have been accepted by the NIH. We believe that this year will see substantial commercial take up of these perfect in vitro research tools.”