Contact | 
Print version | 
PDF version | 
Send article | 
RSS feed
CordLife Secures US Department of Defense Contract US subsidiary Cytomatrix wins US$1.7 million contract
Singapore-based stem cell biotech company CordLife wins DOD contract. Significant endorsement of its T cell technology via a unique and patented cell growth matrix
19 Jan 2004 -
Singapore - CordLife announced that its Boston-based subsidiary, Cytomatrix LLC, had secured a contract with the Department of Defense (DOD) of the United States. Worth up to US$1.7 million, the contract took effect in December 2003 and is expected to run to December 2005.
The contract makes use of the company's patented T cell production technology, in which its three-dimensional cell growth scaffold is configured to produce T cells from stem cells outside the human body for the first time. This unique system will be utilised by the DOD to screen vaccine prototypes under development. By employing this system, researchers will be able to indicate how the human immune system will respond to proposed vaccines, thus determining which are most likely to be effective.
This approach to vaccine screening is expected to reduce both the cost and the time taken to bring vaccines to market. In particular, this vaccine screening system could reduce or eliminate the use of animals in the early stages of vaccine testing, as well as often laborious assays using donated human samples. The development of a standardized, in vitro cellular assay for assessing vaccine efficacy, such as CordLife's artificial T cell system, could result in savings of years of effort and millions of dollars.
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time such an approach is being used anywhere in the world," said Dr. Mark Pykett, President, Cytomatrix. "It is a recognition of the enormous and growing possibilities of our technology. The deployment of the Cytomatrix® in another commercial setting further demonstrates our technology's potential and bodes well for this company as we develop more applications for use by companies around the world."
Top