[Tissue engineering--Quality and safety control of cultured human cells]

Tissue Engineering Research Center (TERC) at Ikeda city, Osaka has been established in April, 2001 and functions as Cell Processing Center (CPC) having biological clean rooms. At the center, many biomedical researchers as well as clinicians work to develop human cell-based medical devices. In the CPC, Medical Device Team in TERC deals with differentiated osteoblasts derived from cultured human bone marrow cells to create tissue-engineered implantable bone. We are focusing on patients treatments by direct application of the tissue engineered bone, therefore, we should manipulate the human cells under more restricted and controlled culture condition than ordinal cases. Here we introduce environment and technology of human bone marrow cell culture, and show quality control and safety evaluation of culture processes in TERC.