The only robot for growing and research of live cells in Russia launched in FEFU

Dec. 18, 2014 - PRLog -- Rector of FEFU Sergey Ivanets, director of the School of Biomedicine Yury Khotimchenko, CEO of the equipment development company TAP Biosystems David Newble, managing director of the supplying company OPTEC Maxim Igelnik, researchers, teachers and students took part in the grand ceremony. The robot-aided complex in FEFU is unique in its parts list: it has no parallel in Russia and only two similar complexes are operated in the world: in the leading research centers of US and France.

‘Bioengineering and cell technologies are a very complex field of research requiring high level of expertise and unique expensive equipment. The number of robots in the world similar to the one installed in FEFU can be counted on fingers, but here it is installed in a university environment',  rector Sergey Ivanets noted. ‘It is important that not only does the School of Biomedicine prepare personnel and perform research but also cooperates closely with FEFU's Medical Center where results of the researchers' labor can be applied in practice in the nearest future'.

One of the present fields of research in the School of Biomedicine is creation of biocompatible implanted materials and bio-artificial analogues of tissues for regenerative therapy of brain traumata. Such innovative means are intended to provide for regeneration of the brain's integrity by implantation of tissue-engineering structures into the damaged area of the body. The project is managed by the head of FEFU's Biomedical Cell Technology Laboratory, candidate of biological sciences Vadim Kumeyko. He says that analogues of live tissues can be "assembled" directly in laboratory conditions and embedded into damaged tissues. The robot-aided complex manufactured by TAP Biosystems plays the most important role in this process: it helps the researchers quickly test the effect of new samples of biocompatible implanted materials on live cells continuously cultured by the robot 24/7.

‘This is a real biofactory producing live cell material for us to develop new technologies of diagnosing and treating diseases which are now incurable. New technologies using implantation of live cells really can help treat patients with most compound traumata of spinal cord and brain in the nearest future. This installation allows to make a step forward performing research on a higher level', Vadim Kumeyko told and demonstrated the robot's possibilities to the visitors. At that moment, nerve cells used for testing new samples of implanted materials were cultured in it.

The possibilities of the "cell factory" allow to develop other research fields of the School of Biomedicine, too, such as genome research and creation of genic therapy medications, development of medicines and cell preparations for therapy of brain tumors, research of immunity and its role in regeneration processes, works in the field of molecular oncology and synthetic biology. According to director of the School of Biomedicine Yury Khotimchenko, the Biomedical Cell Technology Laboratory with a robot-aided complex can become a base for creation of a superior center for genomic and regenerative medicine in FEFU.