Blog | HemaCare

You wanted cell isolation – we delivered!

In 2021, the word isolation tends to have garnered a negative connotation. However, when a cell biologist thinks of isolation, specifically cell isolation, they think of it as a wonderful thing.

After all, isolated cells are a sought-after starting material that allows scientists to dive deeper into their research and accelerate their studies. At HemaCare, we heard your requests and can now deliver isolated immune cells from full leukopak collections to your doorstep!

New webinar highlights the benefits of “dedicated donor pools” - the latest offering from HemaCare to accelerate successful cell therapy research and commercialization

HemaCare, through Charles River Labs, recently hosted an educational webinar focused on their latest cell and gene therapy-related service.

HemaCare will now be working with clients to establish “dedicated donor” pools. The purpose of this new program is to establish and maintain a pool of reliable, recallable donors with client-determined physiological and/or demographic characteristics that match specific client research projects and programs.

A new study that was led by scientists at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology showed that healthy people can have predatory CD8+ T cells in their pancreases, and in high numbers. 

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) develops when the body’s own immune system destroys the pancreatic beta cells. Breakdown in peripheral tolerance and compromised thymic selection have been thought to be associated with the development of T1D. However, the results of a recent study challenge this belief.

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer cite the use of HemaCare starting materials in the development of a new immune cell validation assay. ^[1]

The new assay is designed to measure dendritic cell activation as a predictor of immunogenicity, so that scientists can assess risk early in the development of new pharmaceuticals. Low immunogenicity points toward a better overall safety profile.

Dendritic cells (DC) are antigen-presenting cells, involved in the initiation and regulation of the immune response. Since DC are tumor-infiltrating cells central to the initiation of antigen-specific immunity, they have long been investigated as a means of improving cancer immunotherapy.

Two teams of scientists have discovered a set of inherited gene variants that can increase the risk of developing mutations in HSC’s in their lifetimes. The mutations can lead to two different age-related disorders: clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential and myeloproliferative neoplasms. 

Advancing age has been associated with an increased risk of various chronic diseases and conditions. Mutations in hematopoietic stem cells increase as people age and may be linked to an increased risk of leukemia and cardiovascular disease. Somatic mutations in hematopoietic stem cells are connected to the development of myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) characterized by an excess of red blood cells, leukocytes, and platelets that leads to an increased susceptibility to develop leukemia.