Cellular metrology

Quantifying intra- and extra-cellular processes to bring advanced medicinal products to market faster

There is a strong need to measure and quantify intra- and extra-cellular processes that support therapeutic control of diseases such as genetic disorders and cancers. Invariably, cell-based therapies rely on both of these processes.

Intracellular therapies use drugs, genes or proteins whose delivery is barred by cell membranes, often resulting in high attrition rates. To traverse membranes these drugs need nanoscale carriers and quantitative measures of intracellular delivery that can be benchmarked against reference standards. We develop such standards to characterise and validate critical processes of drug and gene delivery and reveal important factors that affect reproducibility of intracellular delivery technologies.

In improving the efficacy of extracellular therapies we look into how pluripotent stem cells respond to the extracellular biophysical cues that allow them to differentiate into tissues. Stem cells cannot do this without biocompatible scaffolds, which provide the cues and promote the retention of pluripotency and stable replication of stem-cell cultures. We develop reference materials for such scaffolds to help assess the performance of experimental and existing therapies.

For both intra- and extra-cellular applications, we develop reference materials and methods to help validate proprietary products while providing industry with access to our infrastructure, capabilities and know-how. This part of our research programme is leveraged by Analysis for innovators projects, with each focused on a specific product manufactured by an individual company. Other businesses benefit from materials compatible with organ-on-a-chip technologies and 3D living tissue equivalent models.

Contact us