ANTI/PROAPOPTOTIC RATIO AND CELL PRESERVATION EFFICACY

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): BioLife Solutions Inc is a biotechnology company that was incorporated in 1998 with R&D and corporate headquarters at SUNY Park in Binghamton, New York. BioLife has developed two different families of cold-storage preservation solutions for the improved time management, shipping and storage of human cells, tissues and organs. BioLife's HypoThermosol (HTS) platform is designed for hypothermic preservation (4 C to 8 C); whereas BioLife's CryoStor platform is designed for the improved cryopreservation (-196 C) of human cells. The Company generates revenues through (1) sales through its contract manufacturer and non-exclusive distributor, MediaTech, (2) sales directly from the Company headquarters and (3) the execution of pay-for-services contracts whereby individual biotechnology companies contract BioLife to develop optimized solutions and protocols. BioLife has optimized the performance of both the HTS and CryoStor solutions through studying the molecular details of cell death that occur due to extended cold-storage. As a consequence, HTS is up to severalfold better than its leading competitor, ViaSpan; whereas, CryoStor is significantly better as a cryopreservation agent using reduced levels of DMSO compared to traditional solutions. This Phase I proposal presents data that suggest that the bcl-2 antiapoptotic family of proteins may be important to improved hypothermic and cryopreservation. BioLife plans to use a number of cells and tissues relevant to organ transplants and tissue engineering to determine if there is a correlation in the change of any of these bcl-2 family member proteins and the efficacy of preservation. The data generated in the Phase I proposal will allow BioLife to determine if future preservation solution optimization to be proposed in Phase II should be geared toward regulating the bcl-2 family of antiapoptotic proteins to improve cell preservation efficacy.