Cells4Life Introduces Guava PCA System for Stem Cell Viability Testing

Cells4Life Ltd (Brighton, UK) has, using a Personal Cellular Analysis (PCA) system from Guava Technologies Inc., established a robust and reliable testing protocol for all umbilical cord blood samples upon arrival at its laboratory before freezing.

Using the Guava PCA system, Cells4Life is able to ensure that only samples containing a high percentage of viable (living) cells are cryopreserved for storage.

Founded in 2002, the Cells4Life service involves collection of umbilical cord blood at the time of birth and testing of the mother's blood 30 days before and seven days after delivery for disease biomarkers, in accordance with UK Department of Health guidelines.

The umbilical cord blood is processed, cell viability checked and then frozen in liquid nitrogen for an initial period of 25 years. Driven by the future likely importance of stem cells in a wide range of new therapeutic strategies - stem cell depositors at Cells4Life are growing at a rate of 100% per annum.

Jeff Drew, Chief Scientist at Cells4Life said, "Without the Guava PCA system, counting of nucleated cells would be a manual process, which would be very costly in labour terms and also prone to personnel variances". He added "The Guava PCA system has increased the speed and reliability of our in-house viability testing and it also usefully provides a hard copy report in a format easily understood by non-technical staff and customers".

The ultra-compact size makes the Guava PCA system indispensable to all scientists who need immediate access to cell monitoring and screening assays.