Pep Talk
February 2023
It is hard to believe it is the end of February already, our new manufacturing facility is starting to bustle, and we’ve welcomed talented team members across our scientific, operations and commercial teams. The new product development and manufacturing groups have been working hard and it’s great to see the expansion in the high-purity neural growth factor range, allowing us to best support our customers and collaborators. FGF8b for mid-brain organoid generation is next to launch in this range, followed by proteins for microglial differentiations. We are always happy to develop new collaborations, especially with companies and academic groups developing and scaling improved disease models, please contact the team if you have any questions or would like to discuss collaboration opportunities (proteins@qkine.com).
Best regards,
Catherine (CEO and Founder)
Species-specific growth factors
As part of our support for emerging fields such as cellular agriculture, we are actively identifying growth factors likely to have clear species-specific activities to ensure these are available for culture media optimization. Recently, we launched animal-origin-free porcine HGF (NK1) (Qk061) and bovine HGF (NK1) (Qk060), important growth factors for myoblast proliferation. We hope these species-specific growth factors will help researchers build on work such as that published by Mosa Meat scientist Kolkmann and colleagues. The paper detailed the first chemically defined medium for primary bovine satellite cell expansion, where the full optimization of growth factors, we believe, could be limited by lack of commercially available species-specific proteins.
Protein origami to change the future of food
Read our latest blog article written by Lisa Neidhart, a 4th year PhD student at the Cambridge Institute of Medical Research, on how engineered proteins could help to overcome the challenges currently seen in the cultivated meat industry.
Paper highlight of the month
Our recommended paper this month is from Stephen Meek in the Burdon group at The Roslin Institute, Edinburgh. The paper, stem cell-derived porcine macrophages as a new platform for studying host-pathogen interactions, features our Activin A and FGF-2 recombinant proteins. They demonstrate that porcine pluripotent stem cells represent a useful and ethical experimental platform to investigate the genetic and molecular basis of host-pathogen interactions in pigs, and also have wider applications in livestock.
World Organoid Research Day
Join us at our new premises in Cambridge to celebrate World Organoid Research Day (WORD) on 22nd March 2023. There will be a series of talks on the latest advances in organoid and spheroid research from leading UK academic and industrial researchers, plus we will have an exhibitor showcase where we will be joined by local suppliers relevant to the organoid field.
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