Newswise — Aug. 2, 2021 – Phase Holographic Imaging is collaborating with the RegeneratOR Test Bed, a new regenerative medicine endeavor in North Carolina, by providing its technology to help support start-up companies in the regenerative medicine space.
This partnership will help accelerate the growth of these start-ups and scale up companies by providing an innovative technology that provides label free non-destructive live cell imaging.
“Regenerative medicine and cell-based therapies promise to cure common but severe diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s, and several cancer forms. Cell analysis methods that allow cell-based treatments to be consistently manufactured on a large scale are a keystone in making regenerative medicine available to the general public. We are therefore excited to make our cell imaging and analysis technology available to ReMDO, in their mission to advance large-scale biomanufacturing”, said Peter Egelberg, founder and CEO of Phase Holographic Imaging.
The RegeneratOR Test Bed will serve as an economic development driver, helping to accelerate the growth of start-ups and scale up mid-to-large-sized companies with innovative and emerging technologies through access to state-of-the-art biomanufacturing equipment, industry expertise, talent, and training programs to support novel prototyping and commercial product development.
The announcement of the RegeneratOR Test Bed comes from two driving forces of the regenerative medicine field: the RegenMed Development Organization (ReMDO), a non-profit foundation headquartered in Winston-Salem, NC, that is dedicated to advancing the field nationwide, and the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), the largest regenerative medicine institute in the world. Leaders from science, business, health care and government, as well as from collaborating companies, attended the special launch event held today.
Joshua Hunsberger, PhD, Chief Technology Officer of ReMDO, said that Phase Holographic Imaging’s technology will be in high demand for start-up companies in our Test Bed. “This technology offers start-up companies in our region the ability to monitor their live cells using label free non-invasive methods that can offer up over 15 different assays to assess cellular function. Some of these programmable assays already developed include cell viability, cell proliferation, cell migration, and wound healing!.”
Anthony Atala, MD, director of WFIRM, credits Phase Holographic Imaging for trusting the vision. “We believe this region has a lot to offer in terms of helping these companies be successful, and, at the same time, we can advance the regenerative medicine field nationally.”
The RegeneratOR Test Bed is one of three focused areas that operate through ReMDO’s RegeneratOR, a first of its kind in regenerative medicine to promote biomanufacturing scale-up and automation to make technologies more affordable, and speed up the translation to clinical practice. The other two focus areas are:
- ReMDO’s RegeneratOR Business Incubator – supports innovation from research to commercialization for regenerative medicine start-ups and growth companies by providing space and support, including market potential validation, benefit analysis, financial planning, budgeting, and comprehensive business plans.
- ReMDO’s RegeneratOR Workforce Development – a resource that connects an educational ecosystem of colleges, university programs and technical schools with biomanufacturing staff, engineers, and research leaders to train highly skilled biomanufacturing technicians and researchers.
About the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine: The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is recognized as an international leader in translating scientific discovery into clinical therapies, with many world firsts, including the development and implantation of the first engineered organ in a patient. Over 400 people at the institute, the largest in the world, work on more than 40 different tissues and organs. A number of the basic principles of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine were first developed at the institute. WFIRM researchers have successfully engineered replacement tissues and organs in all four categories – flat structures, tubular tissues, hollow organs and solid organs – and 15 different applications of cell/tissue therapy technologies, such as skin, urethras, cartilage, bladders, muscle, kidney, and vaginal organs, have been successfully used in human patients. The institute, which is part of Wake Forest School of Medicine, is located in the Innovation Quarter in downtown Winston-Salem, NC, and is driven by the urgent needs of patients. The institute is making a global difference in regenerative medicine through collaborations with over 400 entities and institutions worldwide, through its government, academic and industry partnerships, its start-up entities, and through major initiatives in breakthrough technologies, such as tissue engineering, cell therapies, diagnostics, drug discovery, biomanufacturing, nanotechnology, gene editing and 3D printing.
About the RegenMed Development Organization: The mission of the RegenMed Development Organization (ReMDO) is to accelerate the discovery and translation of regenerative medicine therapies. ReMDO is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that manages a clinical translation initiative that includes thought leaders, representatives from leading US research centers, government representatives, and companies of all sizes. ReMDO conducts research to de-risk technologies and speed up the translation of regenerative medicine to clinical practice and to the global market. ReMDO manages the world’s first and only professional organization dedicated solely to advancing the regenerative medicine field, the Regenerative Medicine Manufacturing Society (RMMS), and the Regenerative Medicine Manufacturing Innovation Consortium (RegMIC), which manages a private-public partnership of industry and academic members focused on scaling up technologies.
About Phase Holographic Imaging: PHI leads the ground-breaking development of time-lapse cytometry instrumentation and software. With the first HoloMonitor-instrument introduced in 2011, the company today offers a range of products for long-term quantitative analysis of living cell dynamics that circumvent the drawbacks of traditional methods requiring toxic stains. Committed to promoting the science and practice of time-lapse cytometry, PHI is actively expanding its customer base and scientific collaborations in cancer research, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, stem cell biology, gene therapy, regenerative medicine and toxicological studies.
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