BioLife Solutions Inc announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the Company a grant of $158,000 under the NIH's Small Business Innovation Research Program. This is one of several grants awarded to BioLife by the National Science Foundation and the NIH to help fund research into the development of additional applications for BioLife's Hypothermosol and CryoStor product technologies for cell and gene therapies and tissue engineering. The focus of the research is to gain a more complete understanding of cell death when cells and tissues are stressed by low temperature. This understanding is expected to augment the underpinning of the intellectual property and revenue base of BioLife.
This grant will support ongoing studies on three human cell types, each one essential to product growth in markets served by BioLife. The cell types include, human hepatocytes -- essential to the development of "bio-artificial livers"; human epidermal keratinocytes -- the foundation cellular component of engineered skin; and human renal (kidney) cells -- critical to improving kidney transplants.
President and CEO John G. Baust, said that the continued support from third parties such as NIH is a strong endorsement of both the Company's technology and the importance of the medical problems it addresses.
BioLife provides a number of products that maintain the viability and health of cellular matter and tissues during freezing, transportation and storage and markets its products to companies involved in cell, tissue and organ research and transplantation. They develop, in partnership with their customers, customized solutions and packaging material for the preservation and transportation of "living" tissue. The company then supplies that customized solution via ongoing supply contracts.
The aims of the NIH supported research are to gain a greater understanding of the mechanisms of cell death following preservation, determine further how the HypoThermosol and CryoStor platform of preservation solutions inhibit gene regulated cell death (apoptosis) and develop new generations of the Hypothermosol product family. This Phase 1 grant will provide the foundation data necessary for the Company to seek Phase 2 grant support in 2003.