Method for producing a population of homozygous stem cells having a pre-selected immunotype and/or genotype, cells suitable for transplant derived therefrom, and materials and methods using same

Patent Number: 7030292

This invention teaches how to generate a "cell bank" of embryonic stem cells that are homozygous at HLA. Theoretically, the inventors suggest..."that a few hundred stem cell lines that are homozygous for different haplotypes will be sufficient to match a majority of the human population. This number is tremendously smaller in contrast to the number of haplotypes needed to maintain a bank or depository for stem cell lines derived from embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells, or therapeutic cloning stem cells. For example, for every 200 haplotypes there are more than 20,000 heterozygous possibilities ". The way to generate homozygous stem cells is through using, what appears to be a parthenogenesis-like process, specifically "mitotically activating non-fertilized post-meiosis I diploid oocytes obtained from each donor to develop multiple blastocyst-like masses, each of which contains an inner cell mass (ICM) that is homozygous for a particular MHC haplotype, wherein the non-fertilized post-meiosis I diploid oocytes are subject to sham intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) followed by incubation with calcium ionophore". The patent has one independent claim, essentially covering the use of this method for generating a bank of cells.

View this patent on the USPTO website.