A Brazilian pluripotent stem cell research initiative will award eight university labs with $9.3 million grants over three years to create Cell Technology Centers. One such Center, the National Laboratory for Human Embryonic Cells (LaNCE), based at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the University of São Paulo will house a national stem cell bank that will supply researchers with human embryonic (hES) and induced pluripotent stems cells beginning in 2010. The country’s Department of Science and Technology has spent $24.7 million on stem cell research since 2005 to fund 40 labs. The country has recorded a number of stem cell research successes, but scientists agree on the need for a large-scale source of hES. For this, LaNCE researchers have developed a technique for culturing hES cells in bioreactors.

Source: Science