In the medical field, stem cell therapy is becoming a viable and potent medical remedial treatment for many incurable diseases. There are many different cell culture techniques being used in the laboratory. For example, a few biomedical researchers apply biochemical growth factors to turn stem cells into mature cells which called "cell differentiation". Traditionally, cell culture techniques involve using a lot of well-known growth factors and proteins for the culturing procedure. Although they are useful for growth and cell differentiation, the biochemical growth factors can stimulate the growth of cancer cells. If the growth factor is added, these cells could be out of control and become cancer cells.
To solve this problem, the research team led by Prof Ken Yung and Dr Jeffery Huang from the Departments of Biology and Physics respectively has invented inorganic sculptured extracellular nanomatrices (iSECnMs), to avoid using animal or any other biochemical growth factor for cultivating cells. The material is biocompatible and sculptural with no toxicity. Eventually, we hope to extract the patient's neural stem cells and turn them into the therapeutic agent for curing many incurable diseases such as neurodegenerative diseases, chronic systemic diseases and degenerative joint diseases, with no worries about unwanted cell mutations or cancerous results.
The invention was awarded a gold medal with distinction and an Award of Excellence from Romania at the 46th International Exhibition of Inventions, Geneva in 2018. The invention was awarded the Global Innovation Award at the TechConnect World Innovation Conference & Expo (TCWI) held in the United States from 17-19 June 2019. Only the top 15% of submitted technologies as ranked by the TechConnect Corporate & Investment Partner Committee are given this award.