UniverCell: donor derived erythroid cell lines for blood production
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Production of erythroid cell lines capable of differentiating to reticulocytes from consenting donors with rare blood group types for research use and therapeutics
IRAS ID
329063
Contact name
Ashley Toye
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Bristol
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Modifying red blood cells so that they can perform new therapeutic functions is an exciting new therapeutic approach to providing patients with longer-lasting more effective treatments. Currently a promising way of generating large numbers of these therapeutic red blood cells uses donated stem cells as a starting material. However, the issues with using stem cells are i) each stem cell donation can only produce a defined number of red blood cells, so many donations and many different cultures are required to treat a reasonable number of patients, ii) because each production run is using cells from different donors it is difficult to make these reproducible (required for therapy manufacture), and iii) the donors need to be compatible with the patients to be treated with respect to their blood groups compatibility. All these issues could be addressed if red blood cell producing cell lines (erythroid cell lines) could be generated from the relatively rare donors who are compatible with the majority of patients.
We have developed methodology that can immortalise a donors stem cells to produce erythroid cell lines, which are potentially a more sustainable way of producing blood in the laboratory. The cell lines we have made to date have been produced from commercially sourced donors. These cell lines retain the blood type of the donor they were generated from, but these are blood types that are not compatible to the widest range of patients. We want to generate cell lines from donors with rarer blood types to make lines that are more universal for patients. This will involve finding a blood donor with rare blood types, who will be asked to donate blood especially for this study for the purposes of producing a sustainable source of starting material to generate reticulocytes for transfusion and a basis for producing therapeutics.
REC name
London - London Bridge Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/PR/0817
Date of REC Opinion
28 Jul 2023
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion