UPM-Biofore-Magazine-2-2017-ENG

Culturing adult stem cells Dr Darius Widera, University of Reading, UK

HUB OF INNOVATION

UPM's Biomedicals department was previously based in Otaniemi, Espoo. Last year it moved to a new innovation department within the Biomedicum research and education centre in Meilahti, Helsinki. Many top research institutions are located on the campus or nearby, including the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Medicine, the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS), the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Minerva Research Centre, the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) and the Haartman Institute. Over 2,300 researchers or students visit Biomedicum on a daily basis. “Here, medical researchers and other operators in the field are close by. We are part of a larger community. Others also benefit from our expertise,” says Pia Nilsson , responsible for Biomedicals products. At the Biomedicum centre, the scientists meet each other and share the most recent data from different fields. Even the most casual conversations in the hallways or during lunch can lead to new collaboration. GrowDex is currently the most important product in the market from UPM's Biomedicals department, but other products are in the pipeline, such as a wound dressing for professional use. For complex products such as medical dressings, the road to market is long. “The wound care product is currently undergoing clinical trials and the results are looking good,” says Pia Nilsson.

Dr Widera’s research group is studying the potential of adult stem cells in the treatment of different degenerative disorders and diseases. “Our study showed that GrowDex is biocompatible with humanMSCs, and represents a feasible approach to upscaling of their culture. All the GrowDex batches were highly uniform in quality, and the gel was easy to handle. GrowDex has lower tendency than other hydrogels to produce air bubbles, which would negatively influence cell viability and result in non-uniformity of the gel. Stem cell culture in GrowDex allows a significant cost reduction, as 3D cell culture allows higher cell numbers per volume of cell culture medium.”

Darius Widera

Culturing melanoma cells Dr Beate Rinner, Graz Medical University, Austria

Dr Rinner’s research teamhave been developing new treatment strategies for rare cancer types. GrowDex has turned out to be an optimal culture medium for a specific melanoma cell line. Rinner had been looking for a non-toxic, easy-to-handle 3D cell culture medium that contained no animal products.

Beate Rinner

“We decided to culture our NRAS-mutatedmelanoma cell line in GrowDex to see the growth behaviour of the cells in 3D. Initially we found working with GrowDex challenging as it was difficult to pipette due to the gel’s viscosity. The natural growth of the cells more than made up for it.”

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