The development of hepatocytes from hiPS and hESC cell lines within Cellectis AB in Gothenburg, is a continuous work in progress striving to accomplish better and more functional hepatocytes in different formats. The joint efforts from a group existing of 15 people in total do continually improve the hepatocyte maturation/functionality and widens the work platform for the cells. The continuous progress is directly steered into the programme for the best possible benefit. The primary focus within the programme can be summarised as follows:
- Screening for better protocol in attempt to produce further matured hepatocytes (includes, but is not limited to screens of small compounds, coating and media development).
- Co-culture studies, to improve the maturation process for the hepatocytes.
- Partially differentiated cells for freezing. By freezing quality controlled batches of cells we can increase the stability between experiments and guarantee the same start material for several users within the programme.
- 3D cultures in suspension. Functional protocols that allow expansion of undifferentiated cells and differentiation of cells in suspension has several positive outcomes; i) scale up is greatly facilitated, ii) maturation of hepatocytes likely to be increased, iii) seeding of cells already in 3D format onto matrices developed in the programme will likely improve the possibility to achieve high cell density of maturing hepatocytes, to further mimic an in vivo situation.
- Over-expression of important proteins to increase functionality of the hepatocytes.