NUI Galway launches robotic stem cell project
NUI Galway’s Regenerative Medicine Institute (REMEDI) has launched AUTOSTEM, a new €6m research project which aims to develop pioneering manufacturing systems for stem cell therapy.
Funded under Horizon 2020, AUTOSTEM is designed to help meet the demand for new disease therapies by transforming the way stem cells are manufactured.
Stem cell therapies have the potential to target a range of diseases, including cancers, diabetic complications and arthritis. But current manufacturing protocols are relatively inefficient and require highly skilled teams of technicians operating in a clean-room environment. As clinical trials progress, efficient and high-throughput manufacturing remains a major challenge, with the risk that demand will exceed supply.
AUTOSTEM plans to develop a state-of-the-art robotic stem cell production factory, the StromalCellFactory, which will minimise manual operations while producing large batches of cell product in a closed, sterile environment. The process involves the extraction of adult stem cells from tissues such as bone marrow or fat followed by efficient purification and culture expansion in large-capacity bioreactors, finally packaging the product in a format ready for delivery to the patient.
AUTOSTEM will be led by Dr Mary Murphy, senior lecturer in regenerative medicine and principal investigator at REMEDI, who commented on its launch: “This is an exciting interdisciplinary project that will take us beyond the state-of-the-art in stem cell manufacturing. The outcome will be a highly automated and efficient production technology that will allow patients worldwide to benefit from efforts to develop stem cell therapies.”
Professor Frank Barry, REMEDI’s scientific director and the project’s technology leader, added: “This project will be game-changing and will lead to remarkable new efficiencies in manufacturing, making the entire process more industrially relevant and cost-effective.”
As well as REMEDI, essential contributions will be made by NUI Galway’s Centre for Cell Manufacturing Ireland; spin-out company Orbsen Therapeutics; the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology in Aachen, Germany; the University of Aston, UK; German company Zellwerk; Galway SME Crospon; the Tyndall Institute at University College Cork, Ireland; and the UK-based Cell Therapy Catapult research organisation.
