Stem Cell Sciences is to lead a European Union-funded, multinational novel drug screening collaboration using stem cells. The project, named "NEUROscreen", will use Stem Cell Sciences' proprietary neural stem (NS) cell technology and has received an EU funding contribution worth 2.4m (£1.7m), of which around 420,000 "will flow directly to SCS over the three-year period", the company said.
NEUROscreen will bring together a partnership of leading European academic research institutes and biotech companies from several nations, including the UK, Germany and Italy. The programme involves designing unique bioassays based on NS technology, which will then be used to discover candidate medicines for the treatment of cancer, Alzheimer's disease, stroke and epilepsy.
Peter Mountford, chief executive of Stem Cell Sciences, said the funding to lead the project "demonstrates that our technology and capabilities are distinctive in the industry".
He added: "We look forward to increasing the range of drug discovery applications and adding to our list of four large industry licensees of the technology."
The NS process guarantees a consistent production of high-quality cells delivered in quantities to suit most drug screening campaigns. Stem Cell's component of the project will be performed at its automated production facility in Cambridge.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article