The Kyoto University iPS Cell Research Foundation, chaired by Shinya Yamanaka, created iPS cells from the blood of recovered ex-patients in an attempt to help elucidate the mechanism by which they become infected with the new coronavirus and become more severe. We have decided to start an initiative to provide it to research institutes free of charge.
This was announced on the 25th by a group of projects created by the Kyoto University iPS Cell Research Foundation and Kyoto University Hospital.
According to this, the group collected the blood of six ex-patients who were infected with the new coronavirus and recovered from June to September last year to generate iPS cells.
The six are people with different symptoms, severe, moderate, and mild, and the group will start providing the resulting iPS cells to desired research institutes and companies free of charge from next month at the earliest.
The risk of becoming more severe with the new corona is thought to be due to heredity as well as the underlying disease, and the group made various body tissues from iPS cells of former patients with different symptoms and infected them with the virus. , It is said that it may be useful for elucidating the mechanism of onset and the cause of differences in symptoms.
Shinya Yamanaka, the developer of iPS cells and the chairman of the foundation, commented, "We would like to contribute to the convergence of the new corona by having many researchers use it."