Dive Brief:
- The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine-funded bank has opened the doors to researchers.
- The iPSC Bank is offering 300 different stem cell lines.
- Conditions that will be included are heart disease, lung disease, liver disease, blinding eye diseases, autism, epilepsy, cerebral palsy and Alzheimer’s disease.
Dive Insight:
The number of available cell lines is expected to increase to 750 by February 2016.
Tissue samples are being collected by researchers at the University of California San Francisco, UC San Diego, UC Los Angeles and Stanford University.
“We believe the Bank will be an extraordinarily important resource in helping advance the use of stem cell tools for the study of diseases and finding new ways to treat them,” says Dr.Jonathan Thomas, chair of the CIRM’s governing board, said in a prepared statement. “Stem cell technology offers a critical new approach toward developing new treatments and cures for those diseases as well.”