Our organisation
The I-Stem Institute integrates three different activities: basic biological research , a technological research for development and application, and a biological and technological resource centre. To each one of these main types of activity correspond specific forms of organization, ways of financing and different partnerships, which will be created gradually and in a coordinated way to ensure complementarity.
I-Stem first of all includes a basic biological research laboratory, the field of which is defined by practical purposes but which also explores fundamental questions. The exploration of the therapeutic potential of stem cells requires the characterization of their biological properties, the deciphering of the mechanisms that underlie their pluripotency and their capacity at differentiation, by the understanding of the signals that direct their fate towards discrete cell phenotypes… Their therapeutic use requests further, in particular in the case of substitutive therapies, the analysis of their capacities of integration in injured adult tissues and of their potential tumorigenicity, as well as the development of original ways of delivery. The application to monogenic diseases also encompasses numerous topics of basic research, including the definition of the pathological mechanisms, the identification of the biomarkers, etc… The basic research laboratory combines two methods of organization and financing, namely a traditional research unit with a stable personnel, and a number emergent teams that benefit from contractual funding and are integrated on site at I-Stem for periods of 3 to 5 years. The final objective of I-Stem is to propose to doctors and patients therapeutic products applied to monogenic diseases. It thus should install the circuits which go from scientific discovery to application, i.e. coherent technological units structured to develop the therapeutic products within an industrial-type framework, fulfilling all requirements for human application. The bulk cell production, the long term automated cell culture, the development of tools for sorting out and inducing specific cell phenotypes are key elements for the development of the therapies. The similarity which one can find between these activities and those carried out by many companies of biotechnology has nothing fortuitous. In fact, one can consider that I-Stem is partly a “not-for-profit biotech”, which shares the ground of activities of many privately held companies. Several industrial partners are already associated with these activities and it appears essential to us to still enrich these partnerships, in particular through offering collaborations on site to private partners, biotech companies and the pharmaceutical industry.
I-Stem develops biological and technological resources as well as know-how of great value, not only for its own purposes but also for external, academic and industrial research teams, which have different objectives. I-Stem can ensure for them a line of business, which will result in particular in the contractual reception on its site of external teams. I-Stem will devote up to 20% of its capacities to this line of business.