Tissue Banking
Having recently discovered a low-cost tissue isolation and purification process, Moraga is poised to take advantage of a business opportunity for banking both an individual's stem cells and an array of their tissues derived from the stem cells (BLSC differentiation). The Company will construct a database using the banked tissues and purified stem cells segregated according to age, sex, ethnicity, diseases, genotypes, and HLA-haplotypes and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs). This database and tissue bank would be of great value for drug developers who wish to pursue the pharmacogenomics and toxicogenomics of a particular disease category. Using the cell-based assay system, the drug developer can further optimize their lead compounds prior to entering costly clinical trials with a prospective drug.
Similar to companies storing cord blood for future therapeutic use, the Company will provide this service to the tissue donors for a fee in processing and annual storage of their cells. For example, the donor may use their stored cells at a future date as an alternative to a bone marrow transplant or possibly as an autologous cell-based therapeutic when the field of regenerative medicine has advanced to an approved, standardized clinical regimen.
Since BLSCs can be obtained from both living and cadaveric donors, the Company will also provide a stem cell bank for HLA-haplotype-matched engraftment of the cells when stem cell-based therapies are commercialized in the future. Based upon blood banking, blood transfusion, and bone-marrow transplantation models, Moraga is predicting that BLSCS or its derivatives can be implanted into patients who are closely matched in their tissue type without being rejected by the recipient�s immune system. If BLSCs can be used in allogeneic transplantation setting, it may be possible that BLSCs derived from less than a dozen different tissue donors could service the population for a cell-based therapeutic approach in the future.