NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The University of Connecticut has inked a partnership with KeraFast to make stem cells developed at the university available globally.
KeraFast will market two stem cells lines created in 2009 from skin cells taken from patients with deletions of sections of chromosome 15 who develop Angelman Syndrome and Prader-Willi Syndrome. The stem cell lines were developed in the laboratories of UConn researchers Stormy Chamberlain and Marc Lalande.
Lalande is the executive director of Genomics and Personalized Medicine Programs at the university, as well as director of the UConn Stem Cell Institute and the Institute for Systems Genomics. He told UConn Today, a blog published by the university's communications office, "The aim is to make UConn's line available to broaden the research base into more common disorders such as autism and schizophrenia."
According to Lalande, UConn's stem cell lines are the first being marketed by KeraFast.
Institutions that have requested the stem cell lines for research and drug discovery include the University of Cambridge, the National Cancer Institute, the Salk Institute, and the University of California, Davis, UConn said.
Headquartered in Boston, KeraFast markets life science reagents and tools developed by researchers from universities and other not-for-profit institutions.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.