A Letter from STEMCELL’s Founder, President, and CEO
At STEMCELL, we’re driven by a love of science and a passion for quality. Our culture of being Scientists Helping Scientists can be traced back to our earliest origins and continues today as we work to enable you—life science researchers—with the reagents, tools, and services you need to advance your research.
STEMCELL’s story originates in the early 1980s when, as Founder and Director of the Terry Fox Laboratory at the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Vancouver Canada, I recognized the need for high-quality, cost-effective tissue culture media. At the time, many scientists were making their own media to culture hematopoietic stem cells to study leukemia, and the variability in quality and formulations made it frustratingly difficult to compare results across laboratories and studies. To address the inconsistency, my research group began preparing a standardized culture media with carefully screened raw materials. We called this media MethoCult™ and started selling it to other researchers.
By 1993, the demand for MethoCult™ had grown beyond the capacity of our research labs, and the British Columbia Cancer Agency encouraged me to move production into an independent company. So, with the support of Dr. Connie Eaves, my wife and co-founder of the Terry Fox Laboratory, I mortgaged our home and took out a loan from Western Economic Diversification Canada to build a manufacturing cleanroom and formally launch STEMCELL Technologies. MethoCult™ has since become the global “gold standard” for growing and studying hematopoietic stem cells.
Now, almost three decades later, STEMCELL employs more than 1500 people and is providing more than 2500 standardized reagents and tools for all areas of stem cell research to scientists around the world. I am proud that we are as committed as ever to fostering innovation and scientific progress. By reinvesting all profits back into Research & Development and company infrastructure, we are ensuring that STEMCELL can continue to support the scientific community with innovative reagents, tools, technologies, valued educational and technical support, and rewarding career opportunities to advance scientific discovery.
Ultimately, STEMCELL’s story is about improving lives through scientific research. From our strong research roots and humble beginnings to our continued links to academia and industry, we understand the complexities and details that contribute to research success. As Scientists Helping Scientists, we are committed to partnering with you to ensure you have the tools and support you need to reach your next breakthrough.
Allen Eaves, Founder, President, and CEO
STEMCELL TechnologiesLearn More About Us
Scientists Helping Scientists
At STEMCELL, our work reflects who we are. We are aligned on our core values and inspired by our collective drive to advance scientific research.
25 Years of Science
In 2018, STEMCELL celebrated 25 years of scientific progress. As part of the anniversary celebrations, we invited the scientific community to tell us about the discoveries that inspired their scientific pursuits. Continue the celebration of science with us and dive into the featured stories, collected here.
