From this autumn Kyoto University’s iPS Research Institute will start to supply iPS (induced pluripotent stem) cells for regenerative medicine to ten research labs and pharmaceutical companies. The special feature of these cells is that they are derived from blood cell type that matches about 20% of Japanese population and thus would not be rejected easily when transplanted. The goal is to increase stock-pile of specialized iPS cells derived from the rest of population’s cell types to cover about 90% of the population by year 2022.

Currently, iPS cells required for treatment of age-related macular degeneration and other regenerative treatments are derived from patient’s own cells. However it takes 10 months and about 800,000 USD to check cells for defects and to cultivate them. In order to drive costs down to about 180,000 USD, or 77.5% less, and to shorten time-to-use, the research institute led by Nobel Prize winner Shinya Yamanaka will develop a cell bank of difficult to reject donated iPS cells.

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