World's largest public stem cell bank opens to help research for cures

It looks like better things will be coming soon as the world's largest public stem cell bank, by the Coriell Institute for Medical Research (CIRM) at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California, has finally opened for business.

San Francisco Gate reports that the new stem cell bank will provide vials of blood or skin developed as pluripotent stem cells from about 3,000 donors using an online store. The main purpose of the business is to allow a streamline process in the accumulation of stem cell samples for research and treatment of eleven diseases.

Kevin McCormack, the director of public communications for the stem cell's agency, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, states that the diseases they have chosen are those that are problematic to patients. These diseases include Alzheimer's Disease, cardiovascular diseases, liver diseases, autism, neurodevelopment disabilities, respiratory diseases, and eye disorders. The move will help the institute understand how a live brain works and how it leads to the development of these diseases.

Currently, the stem cell bank is furnished with 300 stem cells, which can be used for regenerative therapy or as means of developing human tissues for drug treatments, Mercury News adds. These embryonic stem cells have a possibility to develop into either a neuron, skin, liver, kidneys or heart muscles. However, due to the controversial nature of this type of stem cells, the bank has decided to make use of induced-pluripotent stem cells. They have similar potentials but will not require harvest from embryos.

Kaz Hirao, the chief executive officer of Cellular Dynamics, shares that the available pluripotent stem cells in the bank will become powerful tools for drug discovery, cell therapies and disease modellings because it can capture the variability of human disease and individual genes which is not possible with other cell models.

As for CIRM, they are thrilled to be part of this innovative technology, shares News Wise. The company's CEO and president, Dr. Michael Christman, states that their vision is in line with the purpose of the bank. Being the leader in the management of biospecimen and distribution of samples, it will be a good way to promote research based on stem cells.

The bank is expected to increase its cell lines to 750 come February 2016 and will grow to 3,000 by 2018.