BACKGROUND ::

Tissue Therapies Ltd has a worldwide exclusive licence to commercialise the VitroGro® technology, protected by multiple PCT patent applications. The VitroGro® platform provides an animal product free alternative to Foetal Bovine Serum (FBS) or serum-derived factors, which are currently used routinely throughout the cell culture industry, for cell culture and in vivo wound care applications.

The use of FBS or growth factors derived from FBS involves increasing regulatory oversight and cost. Due to the risks of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), many health regulators now mandate the supply of FBS from BSE free countries, predominantly Australia and New Zealand. This supply is limited and the cost has increased exponentially over the past 8 years.

Since it is undefined, FBS also demonstrates variable bioactivity between batches. Purchase of a new shipment of FBS typically requires the testing of multiple candidate batches with established cell lines and biologically known batches of FBS.

In contrast, VitroGro® can be used as a defined component of tissue culture to simultaneously deliver multiple recombinant growth factors in a way that is highly biologically efficient. A further advantage of VitroGro® over existing products is that it uses a naturally occurring protein that is normally present in the human body at injury sites, to deliver the growth factors required for tissue repair. In comparison, many other technologies aimed at delivering growth factors to sites of injury to encourage cell and tissue re-growth are either adding the growth factor alone, or in combination with bovine or allograft collagen.

VitroGro® formulations have yielded higher cell growth levels than found with many leading commercially available serum-free culture media and cell culture media supplemented with FBS.

Ex vivo expansion of keratinocytes in the presence of VitroGro® promotes cell proliferation and migration.

 

 

This suggests strong potential for more effective wound healing, industrial cell culture and reconstructive treatments. The QUT scientists working on VitroGro® applications in wound care also anticipate that the VitroGro® complexes will encourage the remaining cells surrounding wounds to migrate and proliferate over the wound bed, without the need to add cells isolated from a biopsy (a relatively costly technique currently used in wound healing). This may have significant benefits in terms of ease of use, reduced costs, rapid treatment of wounds, and may have broad application in a diverse range of tissue repair and regeneration applications.