Healthy cells can be catalyst for the study of toxicology in human body, such as hepatic primary stellate cells for liver diseases and renal cortex primary fibroblasts for kidney diseases, skeletal myoblasts for muscle. Healthy human cells from tissues play critical role in absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of candidate pharmaceuticals, natural products, food components and nanoparticles.

The services and technology offered by AseaCyte could play a critical role for drug discovery companies in understanding the informed decisions about biological properties of the test materials before embarking on animal or clinical evaluations. Cell identity is confirmed by fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), using multiple cell surface markers.

Cells are typically supplied with a recommended protocol for cell recovery from the frozen state and with general information on cell performance in culture. AseaCyte's cell biology and cell culture technology is relevant to major human disease areas and could be a key contributor to pharmaceuticals, natural product therapeutics, nutraceuticals and nano-materials industries for predicting therapeutic bio-activity and bio-safety.

"The cells are supplied with quality control data confirming absence of HIV, HBV and HCV human viruses, and mycoplasma contamination, confirmed by PCR-based methodology and ELISA, respectively," says Dr Teo Soo Hwang, founder member and CEO, AseaCyte.

The journey so far
The inception of the AseaCyte took place when Dr Hwang and Dr Lee Hong Boon, drug discovery group leader, Cancer Research Initiatives Foundation (CARIF, a non-profit cancer research institute), Malaysia, met Dr Colin Wilde, chief scientific officer, AvantiCell Science, Scotland, at BioMalaysia 2008.