Stem Cell Technology

Advances in stem cell biology over the past decade have given rise to new biotechnologies that will be used in a range of pharmaceutical applications including creation of cellular tools for studying the origins and progression of disease, development of phenotypic screens for use in drug discovery, development of cellular assays of drug toxicology and metabolism, and production of cell-based medicinal products for clinical use in various forms of ?cell therapy.? A phenotypic screen makes use of an assay that detects a cellular response such as a change in cell morphology, or another downstream event, rather than an initial signal transduction event at the plasma membrane. Stem cells are of particular value in this regard because they can be expanded and then differentiated, providing an unlimited source of mature differentiated human cells (such as neurons or cardiomyocytes). These cells offer the opportunity to develop high-throughput plate-based assays to detect features such as the rate and amplitude of beating of heart cells, or a functional response of a specific subtype of mature neurons, generating potentially more informative assays than current cell-based assays.