EMD Millipore
and iPS Academia Japan Inc. (AJ) announced a global licensing agreement for AJ’s
induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell patent portfolio. The non-exclusive
agreement provides EMD Millipore the opportunity to continue to develop and
ultimately commercialize iPS cells for research applications. Under the
agreement, EMD Millipore will continue to offer its STEMCCA reprogramming kits, which provide a highly efficient,
reproducible method for creating iPS cells. The iPS cell patent portfolio is a
result of work by Professor Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, Center for iPS Cell
Research and Application at Kyoto University, Japan. Terms of the
agreement are not disclosed.
Induced pluripotent stem
(iPS) cells, discovered by Yamanaka, are adult cells that have been genetically
reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell-like state by being forced to express
genes and factors important for maintaining the defining properties of
embryonic stem cells. Induced
pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have potential to further various aspects of stem
cell research, from the establishment of patient-specific stem cell populations
to disease models.
EMD Millipore’s STEMCCA kit is
designed for researchers to obtain and work with induced pluripotent stem (iPS)
cells. Using the STEMCCA kit, scientists are able to generate human and mouse
iPS cells using a single, excisable polycistroniclentiviral vector that
delivers all four reprogramming factors discovered by Yamanaka.
Source: EMD Millipore
