The B.C. Children’s Hospital has received new robotics and stem cell technology that could help the institution come up with treatments to many of today’s hard to cure diseases. Through the program, the medical centre hopes to start finding solutions to genetic diseases such as hearth arrhythmias using the best of the latest stem cell treatments.
The new technology belongs to the hospital’s Cellular and Regenerative Medicine Centre, bringing together all aspects of stem cell culturing with their latest equipment and processes. This new development will help accelerate stem cell development and could become a vital part in developing research for hard to cure diseases that many children and other people face today.
“So this allows us to grow large numbers of cells because these cells kind of grow in an exponential manner,” said Dr. Francis Lynn, head of the Canucks for Kids Diabetes Research Laboratories at B.C. Children’s Hospital. The doctor adds how this technology is exciting because it’s the first of its kind in the world.
Stem cell research has become groundbreaking at the very least over the last few years. Through it, the best in the medical field have been able to come up with solutions to many of the world’s most formidable ailments. Before launching the stem cell program at B.C. Children’s Hospital, most of stem cells were grown manually. That means that stem cell culturing could only be conducted for a maximum of three patients at any given time. The new approach at the B.C. hospital will help exponentially grow that number to eighty patients at a time.
The technology was made available th B.C. Children’s Hospital through the help and funding of Mining for Miracles, a non-profit run by the mining industry in British Columbia that seeks to push worthy causes forward.
Malcolm Berry, president of the B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation, shared his gratitude and excitement over this new development. “This new instrument will result in improved diagnoses, better treatments and potentially, cures, ensuring a healthier future for kids in B.C. and across Canada,” Berry shared.
