Efficient manufacturing of esophageal basal cell therapies from pluripotent stem cells

The skin cells that line the esophagus are critical for protecting against the friction of food when we swallow. However, they can be damaged by genetic disorders, caustic burns, and surgical resections for cancer treatment. While cell therapies have the promise to repair such damage, there are no available methods for producing stem-cell derived esophageal basal cells.

Stanford researchers therefore developed a scalable, GMP-compliant, efficient method for producing pluripotent stem cell-derived esophageal basal cells. Researchers used single-cell multi-omics data to better understand the esophageal basal cell differentiation process, identifying the factors that enable their ex vivo differentiation. This clinical-grade differentiation process enables the production of cell therapies for a wide variety of esophageal conditions.

Stage of Development
In vitro: esophageal basal cells produced using this method self-renew and differentiate.