Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal recently officially opened the newly named Sir James Black Building which will be part of the new BioCity Scotland facility in Newhouse.

A joint venture between BioCity Nottingham and Roslin Biocentre, BioCity Scotland is a unique community of scientific, commercially minded, dynamic young companies with networking, collaboration and sharing ideas at the heart of its success.

During her visit, HRH spoke to Roslin Cellab's KTP Research Associate, Seb Greenhough, about exciting new developments including producing liver cells from pluripotent human stem cells.

The KTP project was funded between Roslin Cellab (Company Partner) and Edinburgh University’s Centre for Regenerative Medicine (CRM). Dr David Hay’s research group based at the CRM is a world leader in deriving human liver cells from pluripotent stem cells. The objective of the KTP project is to transfer knowledge out of Dr Hay’s lab to Roslin Cellab in order to generate clinical grade human liver cells from pluripotent stem cells.

There has been a large increase in the number of patients suffering from liver disease and as a result increasing numbers of patients are dying on liver transplant waiting lists. The challenge is to create large numbers of clinical grade human liver cells to provide liver support in an extra-corporeal device. This bio-artificial liver will be designed to bridge patients either until suitable transplant organs become available or spontaneous recovery occurs.

For more information visit http://www.roslincellab.com/news/2012/3/16/hrh-the-princess-royal-opens-new-facility-at-biocity-scotlan.html

10/05/2012 - Back to news