The Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Technology (LabMCT) is located in the Queen Astrid military hospital (QAMH) in Brussels. Although open to all therapeutic areas, LabMCT focuses (historically) on developing innovative solutions in the fields of regenerative medicine, (molecular) microbiology, and (bacterio)phage therapy. LabMCT houses accredited cell and tissue banks, a molecular microbiology laboratory and a state-of-the-art cleanroom facility.

The LabMCT skin bank, founded in 1985, supplied cryopreserved donor skin for use in thousands of patients. Already in 1987, LabMCT’s keratinocyte bank supplied cultured keratinocytes grafts, which were in 2009 classified as “advanced therapy medicines (ATMPs)”. These grafts were routinely used as auto and allografts in more than 1000 patients, primarily to accelerate the healing of burns and chronic wounds. More recently, LabMCT developed a human acellular skin matrix that can be used as such for the treatment of patients (as a “filler”) or as a basis for living skin equivalents.

The (molecular) microbiological laboratory is fully equipped to work with biosafety level 2 (BSL-2) pathogens and phages. All standard equipment, such as incubators, shakers, water baths, laminar flows, thermocyclers, gel electrophoresis, etc. are present. LabMCT houses and manages a collection of more than 8000 bacterial strains, collected over the past 130 years (some were manipulated by Louis Pasteur in the 19th century), in more than 40 countries on five continents, from various clinical and natural environments. LabMCT specializes in the isolation, selection and characterization of phages that are active against various clinically important pathogens and in the manufacture of therapeutic phage preparations. Meanwhile, phage preparations produced by LabMCT were used in more than 200 patients in 35 hospitals in Belgium and abroad (12 countries).

LabMCT harbors a 1000 m2 cleanroom facility (excluding office spaces), including 4 large independent “GMP class A in B” clean rooms, and preparation, incubator, and storage rooms. This infrastructure, which houses all the necessary equipment, is operated by highly qualified personnel, including experts in the field of quality control and regulatory affairs.