Invitrogen and Cellartis Announces Collaboration

Invitrogen Corporation and Cellartis AB have announced a collaboration between the companies to develop novel engineered human embryonic stem cell (hESC) reporter lines.

The collaboration will bring together Invitrogen's platform technologies and expertise in molecular and cellular biology, labeling and detection and cell culture and Cellartis' expertise in deriving and growing hESC lines.

These lines are designed to provide scientists with a visual readout for tracking stem cell differentiation into different lineages and also enable scientists to study multiple genes involved in differentiation pathways, without having to sacrifice the cells.

"The ability to visualize differentiation in these reporter lines will be a powerful tool to deepen our understanding of human embryonic stem cell biology," said Dr Johan Hyllner, Cellartis' CSO.

"Invitrogen's vast collection of enabling technologies is a key in our ability to realize this goal."

Understanding differentiation, which the collaboration directly addresses, is a key prerequisite for unlocking the potential of these cells.

For example, scientists will be able to determine when particular hESCs in culture have differentiated into mesoderm, endoderm or ectoderm lineages or remain undifferentiated, without having to kill the cells to analyze them.

These reporter lines will address a number of applications, including multi-lineage detection, provide a platform for researchers to study stem cells and could be used to create advanced drug discovery screening assays.

"Invitrogen is committed to advancing the study of stem cells in each of the key activity areas-isolation, characterization, expansion and differentiation," said Joydeep Goswami, Ph.D., Invitrogen's Vice President of Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine.

"This collaboration will be lead by Invitrogen's Dr. Jon Chesnut and Dr. Mahendra Rao, who is widely known as one of the world experts on stem cell research."

"They will be utilizing novel Invitrogen technologies, such as our multi-site Gateway™ expression system, to make advancements in an area of science that has tremendous potential for improving the human condition."