GRAND FORKS The goal of a Grand Forks start-up is to get customers to prepare for a future in which todays medical breakthroughs based on stem cells are commonplace.
You would ordinarily think this is science fiction, said Vin Singh, founder of Next Healthcare, based at UNDs Center for Innovation.
Singh is referring to developments in regenerative medicine in which researchers have used stem cells to re-grow lung, cornea and trachea cells and create other types of human tissue. These advances point to a future when replacing organs will become a common medical procedure.
And he wants people to act now.
Singhs business, which he has been building since 2009 and launched this past spring, is a cell bank, storing samples of clients skin, blood and bone marrow cells for future use when regenerative treatments are improved and widespread.
We know some of them are going to work, and were betting that youre going to be able to use some of your cells, Singh said. If and when those therapies come on line, you will have that healthy seed.
Betting on future
Singhs resume lists a number of companies in the biomedical field. But the basis of his new business is essentially storage, freezing samples of clients tissue that could be used by doctors to treat future health problems.
Clients doctors collect their tissue samples and send them to Next Healthcare in Grand Forks, where they are stored frozen. The company is based in UNDs REAC building, which provides biocontainment facilities. Next Healthcare also has a second storage facility in North Dakota at an undisclosed location, Singh said.
The key to therapies that Singhs company is betting on and wants prospective customers to bet on are advances within the past decade that have manipulated non-stem cells from skin or blood to mimic stem cells ability to grow into different types of tissues.
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Grand Forks firm stores human cells for future treatments