Ultra-effective stem cell growth surface devised

Scientists have created a new type of surface that is able to greatly improve the productivity of human stem cell growth.

Researchers from the Whitehead Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have used ultraviolet waves from an ozone unit to irradiate typical polystyrene lab plates for around two-and-a-half minutes.

This resulted in the creation of a surface capable of tripling the number of human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells that can be grown compared to current methods, while eliminating the need for feeder cell layers from mice.

Polystyrene is the most common cell culture surface used in labs at present, meaning this new technique could offer potentially huge efficiency benefits for medical research efforts.

Daniel Anderson, associate professor in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, said: "To be able to do a simple treatment and get something that works better than the mouse feeder layers is great and potentially has a lot of utility."

This comes after a Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute-led study last month utilised new regulatory factors to reprogramme human cells into stem cells far more effectively than was previously thought possible.