(July 3, 2013) - Barry Stripp probably wouldn’t get very far without today’s advanced cell-isolation techniques. Stripp’s research hinges on isolating cells and studying them for their ability to repair and renew lung tissue. Using monoclonal antibodies to mark out different cell types, Stripp, who is director of the new Lung Stem Cell Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, Calif., relies on “technologies that allow you to interrogate a large battery of markers,” he says.
From there, he looks at which cells stimulate the clonal expansion required for regenerating lung tissue. It can be quite tedious, experimenting with an essentially endless number of marker combinations, different levels of enrichment and various fractionation techniques by hand.
The laborious nature of such work hasn’t gone unnoticed, as evidenced by a marketplace full of products that enable users to separate their cell samples faster and more efficiently. And that, as Stripp proposed, “would allow you to more precisely define the phenotype; it would move you forward more rapidly.”
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