SUMMARY
Cell culture has become a major research and development tool used in life sciences research and development, and it presently plays a major role as model systems for studying basic cell biology, cancer research, drug discovery and toxicity testing. Traditional cell culture for research and development has occurred in two dimensions (2D), which has limitations as it is monolayer and does not accurately represent or model the anatomy or physiology of tissue to yield more informative studies. Three dimensional (3D) cell culture technology has emerged and advanced the ability to more closely model the behavior of cells in vitro to facilitate more informative studies. However, many of the offerings for 3D petri dishes are not customizable or tunable, which means researchers are not able to design environments that are most ideal for the experiments they desire to perform.
This invention provides a family of multi-scale polymeric consumable inserts with surface properties that enable tunable and customizable substrates that possess robust nano/microtopographies and/or mechanical properties for cell growth and development.
Competitive Advantage
In addition to being user-friendly, customizable and tunable, this invention offers the following advantages:
1. Demonstrated prolonged senescence
2. Increased cell count on surfaces with mesenchymal stem cells
Lehigh Tech ID # 051415-01
Opportunity
The overall Cell Culture market “was valued at an estimated $14,772 million in 2013. This market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.71% between 2013 and 2018, and to reach $24,574 million in 2018.” The cell culture equipment market was dominated by market share by the lab equipment product segment in 2013, but the consumables segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR through 2018. Additionally, “the market size of threedimensional cell culture related consumables was estimated to grow at an annual average rate of 23.5% from 34 million dollars in 2011 to 64 million dollars in 2014, and it is prospected to grow strongly after 2014.”
Lehigh University is looking for a partner for further development and commercialization of this technology through a license. The inventor is available to collaborate with interested companies.