We’ve talked a lot about stem cells lately, shown you how stem cell researchers are working on cures to cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease. There’s even a 3-D printing company that recently was able to print high-quality stem cells in large volumes.
It’s kinda like we’re living in a sci-fi movie right?
Well now there’s a biotech startup called Orig3n that is working on creating the largest and most diverse biobank of adult stem cells in the world in order to have more availability and access for research and medicine.
The founders of Orig3n specifically focus on IPS stem cell technology. With this technology you can take an adult stem cell, from blood, or skin, and re-program it to change itself back into its original stem cell state, essentially the equivalent of stem cells from an embryo. These cells are the most useful for stem cell scientists as they can most easily be made into other cells: brain, nerve, liver. Embryonic stem cells themselves, are a complicated issue with ethical and licensing concerns, and access to them can get tangled up in a long and bureaucratic process.
A Biobank for All
That’s why Orig3n was founded. They want to have a ready bank of IPS cells available, without the bureaucracy of embryonic ones. With this biobank, they’ll be able to more readily provide these cells to stem cell research labs and scientists.
The good news is, adult stem cells can be collected very easily from blood or skin samples, and Orig3n does a lot of its collecting from volunteers at concerts, sporting events, conventions, anywhere there are lots of people. Giving samples of blood or skin is a simple process, like giving blood regularly, and can be used to advance stem cell research.
Hopefully Orig3n’s biobank will allow medical researchers access to stem cells that they need –eventually leading to the curing of cancer, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and many more.
To continue to read about Orig3n, click here.
Christian DeHaemer
Check us out on YouTube!Christian is the founder of Bull and Bust Report and an editor at Energy and Capital. For more on Christian, see his editor’s page.
