Laminins are proteins located in the extracellular matrix providing the stability essential for cell growth and behaviour. They are the only protein group in this environment that have a tissue-specific distribution, including expression of specific laminins during embryonic development. This makes them a very interesting target for new biologically relevant cell culturing techniques.
“Our aim is to develop laminin-based culture systems that provide biologically relevant, standardized environments”, said Ruedi Stoffel, Head of Biochemical Reagents & Custom Biotech at Roche. “We are looking forward to this collaboration to build on the revolutionary cell cultivation techniques developed by our colleagues at the Karolinska Institute and BioLamina.”
“We’re delighted that Roche has recognized the potential of our products and technology, which we believe will significantly complement their expertise and capabilities in cell culturing,” states Kristian Tryggvason, CEO of BioLamina. “By resolving many of the technical obstacles currently blocking the road to modern cell therapy, we expect this collaboration to accelerate the development of innovative cell culturing solutions that possibly can enable cell therapy”.
About BioLamina
BioLamina commercializes innovations based on recombinant laminins developed by Professor Karl Tryggvason at the Karolinska Institute. The use of laminins solves practically all the technical problems confronting stem cell culture. When cell culture dishes are coated with biologically relevant human recombinant laminins, many primary cells, including stem cells, feel comfortable and do not change their phenotype. In principle, this allows infinite culture of stem cells and other primary cell types in completely defined environments in vitro. Laminins provide solutions to issues of repeatability and undefined and complex culture systems, making cell biological research and development of clinical applications faster, easier and more reliable. BioLamina has been producing laminins for different cell types and distributing them to all continents since 2009. BioLamina intends to become the one-stop-shop for superior reagents for scientists working in the primary cell culture and stem cell therapy fields. With its proprietary technology BioLamina believes its reagents can be a key to accelerating the development of new cures in regenerative medicine therapies for many serious diseases.