About four years ago, Jay Tischfield, the director of RUDCR Infinite Biologics, a long-standing biorepository at Rutgers University, found himself sitting on a gold mine. RUDCR had recently gotten into the business of banking induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines as part of an initiative through the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
But not long into this new endeavor, “something important happened in the field,” Tischfield recalled. Researchers reported for the first time that they could induce pluripotency from blood cells. It just so happened that RUDCR was in possession of a massive collection of blood cell lines, each with a heap of information on the donor.
All of these non-transformed small lymphocytes had been cryopreserved as back-ups for transformed cell lines. “And it turned out these were fantastic for making iPSCs,” said Tischfield. “We could make iPSCs with about a 95 percent efficiency.” Suddenly, the opportunities for iPSC derivation and banking seemed endless.
As a growing number of iPSC banks begin to come online, they’re facing many of the same questions. Chief among them: Which cells will be good for business?
Read the full, original story: Banking on iPSCs
