Cambridge Research & Instrumentation (CRi) announced today that their Oosight™ Imaging System has been used by Dr Shoukhrat Mitalipov to successfully transfer nuclear genetic material from somatic cells from a 10-year-old male macaque to enucleated eggs to generate cloned macaque embryos. In a soon to be published Nature paper, Dr. Mitalipov of the Oregon National Primate Research Center and the Oregon Stem Cell Center, reports that use of Oosight’s polarized light imaging technology allowed him to visualize and extract nuclear material from somatic cells and then transfer that material to enucleated eggs without perturbing the viability of the recipient cells. Further, he was able to extract viable stem cells from the embryos and stimulate them to develop into mature heart and nerve cell clones. This is the first report with convincing evidence that nuclear reprogramming is feasible in primates. The ultimate goal is to develop clones of patient-specific stem cells that can be use to treat life-limiting conditions such as Diabetes, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and cystic fibrosis.

“Enucleation with Oosight improves primate somatic cell nuclear transfer development to blastocyst” says Dr. Shouhkrat Mitalipov. The current results would not have been possible using the traditional method of Hoechst-UV enucleation.

The Oosight is a real-time, non-invasive imaging system that utilizes proprietary polarized light imaging methods. It dramatically improves somatic cell nuclear transfer efficiency through imaging and identification of structures (nuclear material) that are otherwise invisible with traditional contrast enhancement. “We’re extremely excited to play a role in this exciting research advance by providing the enabling imaging technology used by Dr. Mitalipov”, says Cathy Boutin, Marketing Manager of Polarized Light Imaging Systems at CRi. “This system was designed and developed to provide real-time, non-invasive imaging of live cells that maintains viability, the key to success.”

“As a company, CRi is focused on developing advanced imaging solutions that are enabling our customers to breakthrough roadblocks in the development of new therapies, including the promise of translational, personalized and regenerative medicine”, states George Abe, CRi’s President and CEO. “Our whole team is driven to support the work of scientists and medical professionals such as Dr. Mitalipov.”

CRi is a Boston-based biomedical imaging company providing innovative optical imaging solutions to our customers for more than 20 years. Our multidisciplinary team is dedicated to working with our academic and commercial customers to provide high-value solutions. We provide comprehensive imaging and analysis solutions that enable the user to investigate and characterize biological phenotypes while preserving spatial context. With over 80 patents issued and pending, CRi’s solution platforms encompass sub-cellular, cellular and whole animal applications. Our innovations are being utilized around the world to enable new breakthroughs in research, health and medicine. For more information visit our website at www.cri-inc.com or contact:

David Daniels, Ph.D.
Director of Marketing
CRi 35-B Cabot Road, Woburn, MA 01801 USA
Tel: 1-781-935-9099, extension 149
E-mail: [email protected]

http://www.cri-inc.com

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Swee Lian Liow   02 December 2007

I think that I should comment that Dr Mitalipov is not the first team to use the polarized microscopy system developed by CRI to perform enucleation of monkey oocytes for SCNT. In fact, we have used the SpindleView, a precedessor to Oosight to perform enucleation of cynomolgus monkey oocytes for SCNT. Our objective during that time was to produce SCNT pregnancies from these monkeys. For your information we had 7 pregnancies from SCNT of these monkeys. But unfortunately all of them did not reach to full term. Owing to the lack of funding and support from research funding agencies, we were forced to terminate the project. However, we are glad that our work on SCNT in monkeys using SpindleView had encouraged other researchers to use Oosight as the effective technique in enucleation. Ref: Ng SC et al (2004) The first cell cycle after transfer of somatic cell nulcei in a non human primate. Development 131(10):2475-2484.