Bio power

Stanford has opened its Laboratory for Cell and Gene Medicine, which is devoted to making biological materials for use in phase-1 and phase-2 clinical trials.

“Stanford has a vast pipeline of potential cell and gene therapies that can now be realized without having to go off-site to make materials for testing,” says laboratory director David DiGiusto, PhD.

Among the materials the facility plans to manufacture: purified blood stem cells to treat genetic diseases; immune cells engineered to attack cancers; and viruses equipped to replace faulty genes with healthy, functional copies.