Synthecon’s journey through the years reflects our adherence to our vision statement, written in the times of Charles.D Anderson and Ray Schwarz, the founders of Synthecon. It states,
To see how Synthecon’s technology has developed and evolved over the years, read on…
Before 1990
NASA developed Rotating Wall Bioreactors to keep cell cultures alive during shuttle missions. The purpose of this was to study the behavior of cell cultures in space and discover the effects of microgravity on them.
Unexpectedly, ground validation studies of these bioreactors showed that cells grew three-dimensionally in the RWV bioreactors; also, when different cell types were grown in the bio-reactor, they spontaneously aggregated into tissues. At this point, it seemed like the ground applications of the rotating wall vessel bioreactors would prove to be many and varied.
NASA was working on this study for a sub-contractor, Wiley, who declined the license to this technology. So, Charles. D. Anderson, the project manager for this project and Ray Schwarz, the Chief engineer, who were next in line, were awarded the license, and they accepted it. This was the technology that drove the establishment of Synthecon, Inc in 1990.
1990-1995
The most important setback Synthecon faced in the initial years following its conception was the fact that its technology was light-years ahead of the industry. Scientists were using culture flasks and were quite happy with the results; so the first step was to establish not only the superiority of the RCCS bioreactor for cell culture, but also its eventual necessity for the advancement of cell and tissue culture research. With this in mind, the technique Synthecon adopted was to place RCCS units with thought leaders in the industry, so that this technology could be tested.
In the meantime, NASA wanted to test the ability and potential of the RCCS bioreactor across several fields. To this effect, NASA Life Sciences funded some researchers from MIT and Harvard with multi-million dollar grants to test this device. Since Synthecon was the only licensed supplier of the RCCS systems, business grew during this period. Proportionately, the body of knowledge about RCCS bioreactors also increased exponentially.
In 1993, Synthecon began international distribution and had established worldwide distribution channels by 1995. Our business was greatly helped by the accumulation of information about the applications of RCCS bioreactors in several fields. Look in our bibliography to understand the scope of the RCCS bioreactors.
2000-Present
By 2000, Synthecon had grown to the extent that NASA was only contributing to 15% of its overall business. NASA disbanded its research program soon after.
In 2002, Bill Anderson, the present CEO of Synthecon, took over the direction of the company. Since by this time, awareness about 3D cell culture was quite high and continuing to increase every day, Mr. Anderson aimed to take RCCS systems to the next level and start using them in clinical trials rather than only in laboratory studies.
With this goal in mind, Synthecon submitted a Phase I grant proposal to the NIH to study improved methods of culturing insulin producing pancreatic cells in the RCCS bioreactor. The NIH awarded this grant to Synthecon; Upon successful completion of this grant, Synthecon submitted a Phase II grant proposal to improve the transplantation of pancreatic islets in type 1 diabetic patients. This grant was also awarded to Synthecon. We are now working in collaboration with the Cell Isolation and Cell Transplantation program at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to test the safety of using Islets cultured in Synthecon’s RCCS systems in humans.
Another project that Synthecon is currently working on bases itself on the extensive body of literature outlining the uses of RCCS bioreactors in culturing both embryonic and adult stem cells. This proposal aims to modify the RCCS bioreactor to expand stem cells for possible therapeutic uses in tissue regeneration.
