The culture media covered by this patent contain the key combination of two or three types of enzyme inhibitor. Professor Smith discovered that by inhibiting certain key enzymes in specific combinations, pluripotent (or embryonic) mouse stem cells can be grown reliably without feeder cells, growth factors, leukaemia inhibitory factor or serum.
The UK patent covers any use of this media, and also the use of the media for culturing stem cells, especially pluripotent stem cells. This gives the company the exclusive right to market cell culture media containing these inhibitor combinations.
Tim Allsopp, chief scientific officer of Stem Cell Sciences, said: “These new inhibitor-based media offer pharmaceutical companies and university researchers a simple and elegant way to minimize variability in their stem cell cultures. This has the potential to deliver significant advantages in terms of both scientific accuracy and cost.”