Encapsulation Technology for Increased Environmental Stability of Vertebrate Cells

Luna Innovations is developing stabilization technology for increased long-term storage of various biological moieties (e.g. enzymes, nucleic acids, and whole cells). This unique stabilization matrix allows for extended cell viability lifetime, minimizing cell maintenancerequirements while retaining physiological activity. The proposed encapsulated cell technology will provide significant improvements in cell lifetime, operational stability, with decreased maintenance requirements, and is easily integrated into a variety of sensing based platforms allowing for optical and/or electrical reporting metrics. During Phase I Luna will demonstrate stable long-term cell viability with enhanced environmental stability for a variety of cell lines (including mammalian cells) for a minimum of 8 weeks while still retaining physiological cellular activity. Phase II will focus on extending the cell viability and function to a minimum of 6 months for an increased variety of cell types while also working to integrate the stabilization technology into a microfluidic chip for incorporation into the SafePort water analysis system.