In an August 28 special issue of the peer-reviewed online journal OBM Transplantation, stem cell biotechnology company Asymmetrex has now published a report describing how its technology for determining the specific dosage of therapeutic tissue stem cells works. The new technology is poised to revolutionize stem cell science and stem cell medicine by giving the long-needed means to quantity their essential focus, tissue stem cells.
Stem cell biotechnology company, Asymmetrex, has been counting tissue stem cells like those used for bone marrow and cord blood transplantation therapies for a few years now. Recently, the company announced the issue of patents for its first-in-kind technology both in the U.S. and the U.K. However, until last Friday, August 28, Asymmetrex had not reported in the peer-reviewed academic literature how it achieves this feat that had been pursued by many distinguished labs for more than six decades.
Now in a report published in a special issue of OBM Transplantation, a peer-review journal for transplantation medicine research, Asymmetrex completes its introduction of the new technology to the fields of stem cell science and stem cell medicine. The report is the second invited article published in a special issue focused on the “Isolation and Characterization of Adult Therapeutic Cells.”
The new report describes Asymmetrex’s discovery of mathematical formulas, called algorithms, that can be used to determine the number of stem cells in complex tissue cell preparations, like experimental samples or patient treatments. The stem cell counting algorithms are specific for different types of tissue stem cells. So, the algorithms defined for blood stem cells are distinct from the algorithms for liver stem cells, or lung stem cells. Once an algorithm is defined by the Asymmetrex technology, it can be used repeatedly as a simple, rapid, and inexpensive test to determine the quantity and dosage of its specific tissue stem cell type.
Asymmetrex’s founder and director, James L. Sherley, M.D., Ph.D., anticipated the August publication of the new algorithms in a talk given earlier at the 6th Annual Perinatal Stem Cell Society Congress in March of this year. Then and now, he says that he believes, “Now that the tissue stem cell counting algorithms are available, everything will change” in stem cell science and medicine.
Prior to Asymmetrex’s technology, there was no method for counting tissue stem cells in research, medicine, or for any other of their many uses. So, the impact of the stem cell counting algorithms in research and medicine is far-reaching. Such information is a game changer for accelerating progress in stem cell science and stem cell medicine, including improving treatments like gene therapy whose success depends on targeting tissue stem cells. There will also be tremendous gains in cell biomanufacturing, drug development, and environmental toxicology, all whose capabilities are currently limited by the lack of a facile means to quantify tissue stem cells.
To make the new counting technology readily accessible for evaluation by the greater academic, medical, and industrial stem cell communities, Asymmetrex provides free tissue stem cell counting on its company website.
Asymmetrex, LLC is a Massachusetts life sciences company with a focus on developing technologies to advance stem cell medicine. The company’s U.S. and U.K. patent portfolio contains biotechnologies that solve the two main technical problems – production and quantification – that have stood in the way of effective use of human adult tissue stem cells for regenerative medicine and drug development. Asymmetrex markets the first technology for determination of the dose and quality of tissue stem cell preparations (the “AlphaSTEM Test™”) for use in stem cell transplantation therapies and pre-clinical drug evaluations. Asymmetrex is a member company of the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute BioFabUSA.