Novel 3 Dimensional Biomaterial for the Production of Multiple Blood Cell Types

摘要

Support of wounded personnel is intimately tied to the availability of sufficientquantities of effective blood cells, including conventional red blood cells and platelets and novel therapeutic T lymphocytes and white blood cells. Phase I demonstrated the feasibility of utilizing a novel, biocompatible 3-D device, termed Cellfoam, to support the in vitro production of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets from human hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs). In Phase I, HPCs cultured in the presence of selected cytokines were evaluated for cell expansion, phenotype, multipotency and lineage progression over 4 weeks. These studies demonstrated the ability to produce maturing blood progenitor cells from HPCs cultured in Cellfoam. Such culturing enabled cell expansion of up to 100-fold and the acquisition of phenotypic traits consistent with lineage-targeted differentiation. Importantly, cytokine-supplemented HPCs cultures in Cellfoam exhibited enhanced maintenance of immature progenitors relative to controls, corroborating data that Cellfoam offers an enabling environment which selectively preserves immature, multipotent progenitors.