Leading Innovators Collaborate to Provide New, Patient Representative Cell Culture Solutions for Smarter In Vitro Research.

One of the biggest challenges in drug development and personalized medicine is how to model the cellular microenvironment accurately. The challenge applies to both cancer research and the use of induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSC) for tissue modeling, high-throughput drug screening, basic research, and regenerative medicine applications. As the number of iPSC lines and our knowledge about them increases, there is a growing concern that the process of iPSC generation via cell reprogramming causes genetic aberrations, chromosomal rearrangements, and other issues that appear during iPSC clonal expansion. Cellaria and BioLamina are pursuing this challenge by collaborating to develop more defined reprogramming methods, large-scale iPSC expansions, and lineage differentiation for human cells and animal cells for vertebrate and non-vertebrate species.

The partnership will build on the broadly established methods from both companies for iPSC reprogramming and expansion cell culture protocols that produce cells with no detectable short and long-term genetic deviations or changes compared to the starting cell material. With those methods, Cellaria will use cells from its patient-specific cohorts, or other animals, to establish functional and sustainable cell model systems. Cellaria iPSC production ranges from millions to one billion cells. It supports a variety of applications for customers, including studies of biological pathways, drug screening and development, and investigating pharmacological and toxicological mechanisms of action. Cellaria's cell models also expand the available platforms on which researchers can build the next generation of personalized therapies.

BioLamina provides human recombinant laminin, a crucial tissue culture substrate for the generation and expansion of iPSCs, as well as specific differentiation with maintained phenotypes with a reduced genetic drift. It is chemically defined and animal origin-free and mimics the tissue-specific cell microenvironment. In turn, this provides more consistent and reliable cellular responses and improves cell functionality.

"Cellaria guides drug researchers to understand individual patient responses to potential drug therapies, paving the way for predictive, personalized medicine," comments David Deems, CEO of Cellaria. "Our authenticated cell models and in-depth cell data directly represent patients' reality, resulting in timely and personalized decision making. This collaboration will enable us to provide iPSCs that even more closely represent the original patient environment."

"BioLamina has gained a lot of expertise in growth, maintenance and differentiation of different primary cells. The laminins are the natural environment for cells in the body and it is a pleasure to work with world leading experts at Cellaria to use them further to make top of the class tools to be used for drug discovery," comments Kristian Tryggvason, Founder at BioLamina.

About Cellaria Inc.

Cellaria Inc's mission is to develop and build more informative disease cell models to revolutionize and accelerate the search for a cure. The company provides a suite of products and services that are actionable, replicable and that originate from a patient's unique specimens. With 7 years of research and development, Cellaria's solutions better enable disease researchers to select promising compounds and ultimately identify the most effective treatment for each patient's needs. This helps lead the research community to more personalized therapeutics, revolutionizing and accelerating the search for a cure and/or personalized treatments.

www.cellariainc.com or call 781-257-2679.

About BioLamina

BioLamina's innovative products solve many of the technical problems associated with maintaining human pluripotent stem cells in a naive state and enable to push these stem cells towards different specialized cell types, such as neurons, heart cells, and liver cells. Our flagship products, our biorelevant human recombinant laminin isoforms (Biolamininstm), are defined cell culture matrices that successfully imitate the natural, cell-specific cell-matrix interaction in the cell culture dish, allowing the cells to thrive and maintain their function. Our products are a powerful resource for scientists working both within basic research as well as in regenerative medicine companies with focus on cell therapy applications.

For more information: www.biolamina.com