A glass-ceramic composition as defined herein. The glass-ceramic composition includes a first crystalline phase comprising lithium disilicate. The glass-ceramic composition can include up to 10 wt % CaO, up to 5 wt % Na.sub.2O, up to 10 wt % B.sub.2O.sub.3, and greater than 0.5 wt % ZrO.sub.2. The glass-ceramic composition can also include from 50 to 75 wt % SiO.sub.2, from 1 to 5 wt % Al.sub.2O.sub.3, from 1 to 8 wt % P.sub.2O.sub.5, and from 5 to 20 wt % Li.sub.2O. In aspects, the glass-ceramic composition can include a second crystalline phase including wollastonite, apatite, cristobalite, -quartz, lithiophosphate, or a combination thereof. Also disclosed are methods of making and using the disclosed compositions.

The present invention provides an efficient process for culturing viruses in the presence of an endonuclease and for producing vaccines, typically from live attenuated viruses, under conditions to reduce the presence of host cell DNA and eliminate the need for a post-harvest DNA digestion step.

The present invention relates to a cell culture support including a substrate and a thermoresponsive polymeric blend layer, wherein the polymeric blend layer includes at least one thermoresponsive polymer and at least one network forming adhesion promoter. The present invention further relates a method of making a cell culture complex including: providing a substrate; blending at least one thermoresponsive polymer and at least one network forming adhesion promoter to provide a polymeric blend; applying a thin film of said polymeric blend to the substrate to provide a polymeric blend layer on the substrate; curing the polymeric blend layer on the substrate to provide a cell culture support; and depositing cells onto said cell culture support, wherein the cells may optionally further include medium, to provide a cell culture complex.

The present invention provides tissue scaffolds, methods of generating such scaffolds, and methods of use of such scaffolds to generate aligned and functional neural tissues for use in methods including regenerative medicine, wound repair and transplantation.

Disclosed herein is a material that may be useful as a coating for optical slides and medical implants. The material may aid or restrict grown of cells on a coating of the composite material. As such, there is provided a composite material having a substrate on the surface of which a coating layer of an amorphous metal oxide is formed. The metal oxide may be one or more of Ag.sub.2O, ZnO, ZrO.sub.2, TiO.sub.2, CuO, and Y.sub.2O.sub.3 and the coating layer may be from 5 to 100 nm thick and have a root mean square roughness of the coating surface is from 0.1 to 0.7 nm.

The present invention relates to a method for the culturing of cells on a cell culture substrate, wherein the cell culture substrate comprises a cell culture substrate made of glass and at least a part of the cell culture substrate made of glass has a surface with a nanoporous structure with an average pore diameter of 2 to 150 nm, and the use of a cell culture substrate for the culturing or differentiation of cells, as bottom of a cell culture vessel or bioreactor, as removable insert for cell culture vessels or bioreactors and/or as perfusive membrane for 3D cell culture reactors, whereby the cell culture substrate comprises a cell culture substrate made of glass and at least a part of the cell culture substrate made of glass has a surface with a nanoporous structure with an average pore diameter of 2 to 150 nm.

The purpose of the present invention is to provide a cell culture substratum which has excellent resistance to liquid culture media and low cytotoxicity, can achieve a high cell adhesion ratio and a high viability of cultured cells, has excellent thermal stability, and is less likely to absorbs ultraviolet ray. A cell culture substratum which is provided with a substrate made from an inorganic material and has multiple concavo-convex structures on a culturing surface thereof, wherein, when the concavo-convex structures are measured with an atomic force microscope in accordance with JISB0601 and JISR1683 (measured area: a 1 m-square, cut-off value of a low-pass contour curve filter: 1 nm, cut-off value of a high-pass contour curve filter: 170 nm), the average of the lengths of contour curve elements of the concavo-convex structures is 1 to 170 nm as measured in at least one direction (when a curve showing long-wavelength components that are blocked by the high-pass contour curve filter is converted to a straight line by the least square method, the average line is a line that is parallel with the straight line and indicates a height cumulative relative frequency distribution in the contour curve of 50%).

A method of coating a surface with nanoparticles for biological analysis of cells that includes the steps of cleaning the surface with an oxidizing acid, treating the surface with an organosilane, coating the surface with nanoparticles, and then growing cells on the surface coated with the nanoparticles. The surface may be a glass surface, a silica-based surface, a plastic-based surface or a polymer-based surface. The nanoparticles may be gold-based nanomaterials.

The present disclosure provides a planar microelectronic human blood brain barrier stack used to model drug effects and transport across the brain capillary endothelial barrier to neurons. In one embodiment the stack is comprised of a carrier substrate, electrode arrays, astrocytes, extracellular matrix and brain capillary endothelial cells.

The subject invention concerns materials and methods for culture of cell aggregates. The subject invention utilizes three-dimensional (3-D) inserts comprising micro-channels having selected dimensions. The inserts are provided in or on tissue culture plates that can be supported on a programmable rocking platform/station, thereby providing for a hydrodynamic environment that promotes 3-D aggregation of cells cultured on the plates. In one embodiment, one or more micro-channels are provided in a 3-D insert that can be provided in or placed within the tissue culture plate. Cells are placed in the micro-channels of the inserts in the tissue culture plates that comprise a suitable cell growth medium for the particular type of cell. The supporting rocker is programmed to provide motion that generates hydrodynamic conditions that support 3-D cell aggregation and long-term culture. Aggregated cells can be harvested and isolated from the micro-channels of the 3-D inserts in the tissue culture plate at suitable times. The subject invention also concerns an apparatus comprising a tissue culture vessel that comprises a 3-D insert of the present invention, and a programmable rocking platform/station that can provide motion to the vessel provided thereon, thereby generating hydrodynamic conditions and wave motion that support 3-D cell aggregation and cell culture. The subject invention also concerns methods for growing 3-D aggregates of cells. Methods of the invention comprise culturing cells in a micro-channel of a 3-D insert of the invention provided in or as part of a tissue culture vessel or the well of a tissue culture vessel.