Newcells Biotech joins StemBANCC consortium

Newcells Biotech has joined the StemBANCC project, a pan-EU consortium made up of major pharmaceutical and academe groups. StemBANCC’s goal is to generate 1,500 iPSC lines from 500 people, characterise them in terms of their genetic, protein, and metabolic profiles, and make them available to researchers for toxicology testing and disease modelling.

The raw materials for the project are largely skin and blood samples taken from patients with certain diseases, people who display adverse reactions to drugs, and healthy individuals. There is a strong focus on peripheral nervous system disorders (especially pain); central nervous system disorders (e.g. dementias); neuro-dysfunctional diseases (e.g. migraine, autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder); and diabetes. The project also investigates the use of human iPSCs for toxicology testing; using iPSCs to generate liver, heart, nerve and kidney cells.