Houston, TX— July, 21st, 2010 — Synthecon’s Chief Scientist, Dr. Stephen Navran, has received an $828,000 a phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health, (NIH). The goal of this project is to develop a tissue engineered artificial bone marrow-like environment using a new version of Synthecon’s Rotary Cell Culture System, RCCS. In this environment umbilical cord stem cells can be expanded and harvested for bone marrow transplantations. 

Umbilical cord stem cells are highly desirable for transplantation, but the widespread use of these cells has been limited by the volume restriction of a single cord blood unit. Current attempts to expand the numbers of umbilical cord blood stem cells using conventional cell culture methods have met with little success. By developing an artificial bone marrow-like environment in the RCCS to mimic the natural process of stem cell expansion, Synthecon intends to scale up the production of umbilical cord stem cells to facilitate their use in many more transplant procedures.

Bill Anderson, Synthecon’s President and CEO, commented, “successful completion of this work will allow many more cord blood stem cell transplants to be administered to individuals suffering from a number of diseases including leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia (also called “acute lymphoblastic leukemia,” or ALL), acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), juvenile chronic myelogenous leukemia (JCML).” Synthecon has teamed with leaders in the field of cord blood stem cell research and we are very optimistic about the outcome of this work.

About Synthecon, Inc.

Synthecon, Incorporated. is a biotechnology company that specializes in the design and manufacture of 3D cell culture systems. Synthecon has been the leading 3D bioreactor company in the biotechnology industry for the past 15 years. Our rotating bioreactors have applications in various fields of cell culture and tissue engineering, the latest and most interesting of which is stem cell culture for regenerative medicine.