Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects

Emerging cellular therapies have the potential to both greatly improve the health of individuals*and to reduce healthcare costs by curing diseases. For example, it has been established that*a cellular transplant therapy can reverse and potentially cure type 1 diabetes. However, there*are far too few cadaveric donors available relative to the many thousands of Canadians who*could benefit from this therapy. Generating pancreatic islets (insulin-generating cells) from*cultured stem cells is an exciting development that could provide an essentially unlimited*supply for transplantation into diabetic patients. It has already been demonstrated that these*cells can reverse diabetes in animal models, and a human clinical trial is currently underway.*However, several challenges must be overcome to make this cure for diabetes a reality.*Among them, improving the complex processes used to produce these cells is paramount.*For example, we need technologies capable of non-invasively (and without contact)*monitoring of the cultures so that the cells produced remain safe and effective. Our group has*shown that novel spectroscopic techniques can gather critical information using light scattered*by the cultured cells, tracking the critical developmental changes taking place as stem cells*become pancreatic cells. This project will advance this non-invasive technology so that it can*be used to assess and control the quality of stem cell-derived therapeutic cells destined for*transplantation. This will contribute to the development and approval of safe and efficacious*therapies with the potential of curing thousands of Canadians. While the first application will*target diabetes, our technology could also be applied to many other cell therapies that target*diseases such as cancer and heart disease cellular therapy.