New tech tool speeds up stem cell research

It’s hard to do a good job if you don’t have the right tools. Now researchers have access to a great new tool that could really help them accelerate their work, a tool its developers say “will revolutionize the way cell biologists develop” stem cell models to test in the lab.

Fluidigm’s Callisto system

Fluidigm’s Callisto system

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Fluidigm’s Callisto system
The device is called Callisto™. It was created by Fluidigm thanks to two grants from CIRM. The goal was to develop a device that would allow researchers more control and precision in the ways that they could turn stem cells into different kinds of cell. This is often a long, labor-intensive process requiring round-the-clock maintenance of the cells to get them to make the desired transformation.

Callisto changes that. The device has 32 chambers, giving researchers more control over the conditions that cells are stored in, even allowing them to create different environmental conditions for different groups of cells. All with much less human intervention.

Lila Collins, Ph.D., the CIRM Science Officer who has worked closely with Fluidigm on this project over the years, says this system has some big advantages over the past:

“Creating the optimal conditions for reprogramming, stem cell culture and stem cells has historically been a tedious and manually laborious task. This system allows a user to more efficiently test a variety of cellular stimuli at various times without having to stay tied to the bench. Once the chip is set up in the instrument, the user can go off and do other things.”

Having a machine that is faster and easier to use is not the only advantage Callisto offers, it also gives researchers the ability to systematically and simultaneously test different combinations of factors, to see which ones are most effective at changing stem cells into different kinds of cell. And once they know which combinations work best they can use Callisto to reproduce them time after time. That consistency means researchers in different parts of the world can create cells under exactly the same conditions, so that results from one study will more readily support and reflect results from another.

In a news release about Callisto, Fluidigm’s President and CEO Gajus Worthington, says this could be tremendously useful in developing new therapies:

“Fluidigm aims to enable important research that would otherwise be impractical. The Callisto system incorporates some of our finest microfluidic technology to date, and will allow researchers to quickly and easily create complex cell culture environments. This in turn can help reveal how stems cells make fate decisions. Callisto makes challenging applications, such as cellular reprogramming and analysis, more accessible to a wide range of scientists. We believe this will move biological discovery forward significantly.”

And as Collins points out, Callisto doesn’t just do this on a bulk level, working with millions of cells at a time, the way the current methods do:

“Using a bulk method it’s possible that one might miss an important event in the mixture. The technology in this system allows the user to stimulate and study individual cells. In this way, one could measure changes in small sub-populations and find ways to increase or decrease them.”

Having the right tools doesn’t always mean you are going to succeed, but it certainly makes it a lot easier.


ORIGINAL: California's Stem Cell Agency. Center for Regeneratie Medicine

kmccormack2014

June 25, 2015