T&R Biofab Selected as the Ministry of Health and Welfare's Lead Research Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Commercialization Project

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] T&R Biofab, a 3D bioprinting specialized company (CEO Yoon Wonsoo), announced on the 27th that it has been selected as the lead research institution for the Ministry of Health and Welfare's stem cell and regenerative medicine commercialization project titled 'Development of Convergent Commercialization Technology for Maturation of Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes.'

Accordingly, T&R Biofab (Chief Researcher Director Moon Sunghwan) will collaborate with the research team of the Department of Physiology and Medical Research Institute at Seoul National University College of Medicine (Sub-responsible Professor Choi Sungwoo) to carry out the research project. The research period is from this month until December 2022, totaling 2 years and 9 months. They will receive a total of 825 million KRW in research funding from the government.

The detailed research contents include ▲ exploring optimal cardiomyocyte maturation technology by converging 3D cell printing technology and micro-culture environment control technology ▲ evaluating the efficacy of cardiomyocyte maturation induction technology and establishing methods to assess the degree of maturation ▲ developing prototype products that promote cardiomyocyte maturation.

Human cardiomyocytes are key resources in the fields of cardiac toxicity evaluation for new drug development and cell therapy development for heart diseases. However, due to the absence of stem cells in the body and their non-proliferative nature, there are limitations in securing resources for research and development.

To overcome these limitations, technologies to produce stem cells from pluripotent stem cells have been developed. However, cardiomyocytes derived from pluripotent stem cells are immature cells that show different drug responses compared to adult cardiomyocytes or cause arrhythmias in preclinical animal experiments for cell therapy development, raising concerns.

T&R Biofab's current project aims to develop a maturation-promoting product capable of mass-producing cardiomyocytes functionally similar to adult cardiomyocytes by converging various element technologies that induce cardiomyocyte maturation with 3D cell printing technology, and to launch it in the global market.

Moon Sunghwan, Director and Chief Researcher at T&R Biofab, said, "If cardiomyocyte therapeutics using convergent cardiomyocyte maturation technology are developed, it will be possible to overcome the limitations of existing stem cell therapies that had minimal therapeutic effects and develop high-functionality stem cell therapies. It is also expected to lead to toxicity evaluation platforms for drugs based on mature cardiomyocytes, in vitro disease modeling, and bioartificial organ development."

Meanwhile, T&R Biofab's selection as the lead research institution for this project is regarded as its third achievement following the recent establishment of a drug cardiac toxicity evaluation platform using cardiomyocytes by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency and its selection as a research institution for tissue regeneration biomaterial technology development by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.