Establishment of a cryo-bank of lineage-committed neural progenitor cells produced from engineered human pluripotent stem cells

Why did we fund this project?

This award aims to establish a human-induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived neural progenitor cell bank enabling non-stem cell specialist researchers to take up the method and replace the use of in vivo models in neuroscience research.

There are a number of barriers to the uptake of iPSC technology, including the expense, time and expertise needed to establish stem cell culture and differentiation within a laboratory, which can limit the replacement potential of this method. Professor Tilo Kunath has developed a protocol to differentiate iPSCs along neural cell lineage pathways and freeze them in a progenitor cell state. This commits the cells to producing a specific cell type upon thawing without the need for collaborating research groups to have specialist stem cell expertise. Tilo and colleagues will now create the “Edinburgh Progenitor Cell Bank”, a quality-controlled bank of frozen progenitor cells to distribute to neuroscience researchers in academia and industry.

This award was made as part of the BBSRC/NC3Rs joint call for the development of next generation non-animal technologies (NATs).