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Stem Cell Sciences Enters into Services Agreement with CHDI Foundation
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Stem Cell Sciences plc has announces that it has entered into an agreement with CHDI Foundation, Inc., to support the standardization of CHDI's mouse embryonic stem (ES) cell lines.
CHDI is a US non-profit organization pursuing treatments for Huntington's disease (HD). The cell lines have been produced over a period of several years under varying conditions, and conversion to a standard methodology is expected to facilitate their use in HD-related research towards the development of new HD drugs and diagnostics.
CHDI and its collaborators have developed a unique series of 20 ES cell lines from genetically modified mouse models that mimic aspects of Huntington's disease. These cell lines and mouse models represent an important tool for medical researchers to use in a wide variety of research programmes in HD. High-quality mouse ES cells are expected to be important and valuable for drug target validation and drug screening efforts.
Under the service agreement announced, SCS will create standard culture conditions for CHDI's mouse ES cell lines using its serum-free and feeder-free ESGRO Complete™ media. Financial terms have not been disclosed. Initially, SCS will convert three cell lines to the standardized culture conditions and will monitor their viability and stability during this process.
If successful, the Company may have the opportunity to apply its proprietary technologies across the entire range of CHDI's mouse ES cell lines, as well as providing the Foundation and researchers with media and reagents for future programmes.
"Switching these cell lines to ESGRO Complete™ media will allow researchers around the world to apply uniform media and growth conditions for easy maintenance of CHDI's mouse model ES cell lines, removing a substantial source of experimental variability," said George Murphy, Senior Vice President of SCS LLC.
"The deal is a further validation of the quality of SCS' media, and repeat use of CHDI's cell lines is expected to generate further revenue growth from ESGRO Complete™," Murphy said.
"The experience of Stem Cell Sciences in standardizing conditions for growing stem cells should help accelerate the evaluation of the various mouse ES cells for HD target validation and drug discovery programs. Working with SCS furthers CHDI's goal of making high quality reagents available to the HD research community," said Dr Jamshid Arjomand, Director of Basic Research at CHDI, overseeing the Foundation's stem cell initiative.
ESGRO Complete™ and several other proprietary SCS media products are distributed worldwide under an exclusive licence agreement with Chemicon/Millipore Corporation.
