Top award for 3D cell culture pioneer, Stefan Przyborski, of Reinnervate Ltd

Sedgefield, UK. June 2012 – Prof Stefan Przyborski, CSO and founder of Reinnervate Ltd has been recognised with a top award from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

The Rita and John Cornforth award 2012 recognises Prof. Przyborski’s leadership and inter-disciplinary work, at the boundaries of physical chemistry and biology, to develop Alvetex® Scaffold for three dimensional (3D) cell culture.

For the last 10 years, Prof. Przyborski’s work at the University of Durham and as CSO of Reinnervate Ltd, has lead to the development and commercialisation of solutions for scientists who wish to culture cells in a way that better mimics the in vivo growth of cells. Under Stefan’s leadership, the scientific team at Reinnervate are now providing the global scientific community with Alvetex Scaffold 3D cell culture protocols and application guides in areas such as 3D cancer cell biology, stem cell science, in vitro skin modelling and 3D liver cell toxicity testing.

“I am delighted to be recognised by the RSC for the work we have done at the University of Durham and Reinnervate Ltd”, commented Prof Przyborski “The work we are doing in providing scientists with models that get them closer to in vivogrowth conditions is vital for the enhancement of both basic and commercially focused life science research.”

The RSC recognition adds to the growing list of awards received by Reinnervate with Alvetex Scaffold having been voted one of the Top 100 innovative products of 2011 at the R&D 100 awards and named among the winners of The Scientist magazine’s Top 10 Life Science Innovations of 2010. 

About Alvetex®Scaffold

Alvetex Scaffold is a unique polystyrene material that provides a robust and inert scaffold for cells to grow and form complex 3D structures in the laboratory, mimicking the normal growth and formation of tissues in the body. Reinnervate has extensively tested and validated Alvetex Scaffold with a large number of cell types, including liver, skin, cancer and stem cells, all of which have important applications in basic research into cell development, disease modelling and drug safety screening.

Alvetex Scaffold has been launched globally in several formats: a 12-well culture plate, 6-well and 12-well inserts and a deep Petri dish. These formats provide researchers with an exceptional degree of versatility in how they choose to construct different 3D cell culture models. Through enabling alternative applications, such as long-term 3D cell culture over several weeks, 3D cell growth at air/liquid interface and 3D cell growth with different media constituents, to be performed simply and routinely, Reinnervate continues to make genuine 3D cell culture a reality for researchers today.

Alvetex Scaffold was voted as one of the top 100 innovative products of 2011 at the R&D 100 awards and was named among the winners of The Scientist magazine’s “Top 10 Life Science Innovations of 2010”.

For further information, please contact

For Reinnervate
info-emea@reprocell.com

David Robinson
Alto Marketing
+44 (0) 1489 557672
davidr@alto-marketing.com

About Reinnervate

Reinnervate is an innovative life sciences company dedicated to making routine 3D cell culture a reality for researchers in academia and in the pharmaceutical and related industries.

Reinnervate’s core technology is Alvetex®Scaffold, a unique and proprietary scaffold that enables routine 3D cell culture in the laboratory. Alvetex provides a nanoscale environment that supports genuine homogeneous 3D cell growth. Cells grown using Alvetex form complex 3D tissue cultures which more closely mimic normal in vivo cell growth and the formation of tissues in the body than conventional techniques. The use of Alvete®-derived 3D cell cultures can provide researchers with greater insight into how cells behave in the body in response to external factors (such as drug candidates) than is currently possible with existing 2D or other emerging 3D cell culture technologies.

Reinnervate has generated significant data, which have been published extensively in peer-reviewed publications, exemplifying the use of Alvetex in a large number of cell types and applications. Alvetex scaffold has been launched globally in several formats: a 12-well culture plate, 6-well and 12-well inserts and a deep well Petri dish.

Reinnervate continues to develop its technology for use in the 3D cell culture. During 2012 Reinnervate will deliver further innovative products to help researchers improve the growth and function of their cultured cells

Reinnervate was founded in 2002 based on the pioneering research of Professor Stefan Przyborski and his lab at Durham University, UK, and is funded by NorthStar Equity Investors (NSEI), management and private investors.

Note: Reinnervate Ltd (County Durham, England) was acquired by REPROCELL Inc (Yokohama, Japan) in August 2014. Biopta Ltd (Glasgow, Scotland) was acquired by REPROCELL in November 2015. REPROCELL Europe Ltd was established by merging Reinnervate and Biopta in June 2016.