Our goal is to prepare the world for the future of personalized regenerative medicine, where we can use the power of our own cells to heal our bodies — and to do this successfully, it’s important to engage with the science that will enable this exciting future. We’re weaving decades of cell-based research to build a science-backed foundation for Acorn.
We see personalized regenerative medicine as a new approach to healing our bodies, empowered by a collaboration of cryopreservation, bioengineering, and stem cell science. These areas have demonstrated the immense power of our cells and the profound benefits cell-based treatments can provide to people. Acorn is proud to be building on this scientific foundation, and excited to unlock even more of its potential.
Studies show our cells have the potential to rejuvenate tissues, support injury recovery, fight disease and more. This is possible due to our cells abilities to outgrow, differentiate and reprogram to serve a variety of functions. Unfortunately, as we age, we see diminished levels of cell function and diversity, in addition to to the accumulation of DNA damage and mutations. Cryogenically freezing cells allows us to retain a younger autologous cell population that can avoid additional effects of aging and provide a better starting material for regenerative medicine therapies.
Acorn considers the hair follicle as an ideal cell source due to its small size, rich cell diversity, and the ability to harvest it non-invasively at any age. We are actively exploring its new applications and have validated it as an ideal cell banking resource. We've been able to outgrow millions of cells from a single follicle, differentiate them into multiple cell types, and even create induced pluripotent stem cells that can become any cell in the body.
With Acorn, we want to provide a platform where patients' younger autologous cells are a resource that can be leveraged with any number of therapies and regenerative medicine applications – directly through Acorn, or with any other approved therapy that can leverage a patient’s own cells. We are actively working with some of the top healthcare and education institutions in North America on research, including the National Research Council of Canada, the University of Toronto, Mount Sinai Hospital, the University of Calgary and others.
If you would like to include Acorn’s cell technology in your research, you can reach out to us here.