"We congratulate the Whitehead Institute researchers on this important discovery, and are pleased to announce this expanded application for our GS2-M product," said Stewart Craig, Senior Vice President, Development and Operations at StemCells, Inc. "With the addition of two simple molecules to our GS2-M media formulation, researchers can now achieve an 'apples to apples' comparison when exploring the biology of naive human and mouse pluripotent stem cells.  This is particularly important for analyzing in vitro data between mouse and human cells and for the study of certain diseases, a comparison previously not possible due to the differences in human and mouse pluripotent cells resulting from methods used for their culture."

GS2-M is a completely defined, serum-free media containing selective small molecule inhibitors that block differentiation-inducing signals and promote cell survival and expansion. GS2-M has been shown to:

Efficiently convert human primed ES or iPS cells into fully pluripotent stem cells in the presence of forskolin and leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) Efficiently convert partially reprogrammed, or 'pre-iPS', mouse cells into fully pluripotent stem cells in the presence of LIF Maintain naive human and mouse ES and IPS cells in a definitive pluripotent 'ground state' in long-term culture

The GS2-M media formulation is based on the '2i' technology developed by prominent academic researchers in the United Kingdom, and exclusively licensed to StemCells, Inc.  

SOURCE StemCells, Inc.