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Local biotech firm focuses on cell and tissue storage
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
About two years ago, the Charleston division of Chicago-based biotech firm Organ Recovery Systems spun itself off to form Cell & Tissue Systems Inc.
The Charleston firm develops ways to repair and cryogenically store cells and tissues, which will improve the quality of human organs for transplants. People suffering from damaged knee cartilage and other tissues also benefit from the firm’s research.
“We develop technology that will help other scientists develop cartilage replacements,” said Kelvin Brockbank, Cell & Tissue Systems’ president and chief science officer.
Although completely independent from ORS, which repairs damaged organs, Cell & Tissue Systems still works with ORS. The Charleston firm helped develop the technology for ORS’ kidney preservation and transportation device, a product recently featured on the CBS prime-time television show “CSI: New York.”
Scientists at the Charleston tissue-engineering firm store cells and tissue by freezing them in liquid nitrogen at temperatures ranging from 135 to 190 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. A glass-like coating forms around the cells and tissues and preserves them in tact.
The process, called vitrification, is safer and more efficient than ice-packed preservation, which damages tissues and prevents muscles from fully functioning, Brockbank said.
Vitrification enables the frozen cells and tissues to be used later to repair damaged organs and joints.
Cell & Tissue Systems is also working on improving methods by which insulin-producing structures in the pancreas can be implanted in diabetes patients. Additionally, the firm is working on pancreatic preservation and transportation technologies.
The firm is researching similar storage and transportation methods for the liver.
Grants from the National Institute of Health are funding these efforts.
The market potential for long-term tissue and cell storage is “huge,” exceeding several billion dollars, Brockbank said.
He estimates that about 50% of the U.S. health care marketplace will need this technology.
Brockbank said he believes the growth of a tissue-engineering industry in the Lowcountry is hampered by a lack of incubator space for fledgling companies.
Cell & Tissue Systems has a staff of seven but will probably add “a couple of employees a year over the next few years,” Brockbank said.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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