Community Tissue Services
Founded: In Dayton in 1986.
Service: Not-for-profit tissue bank.
Dayton branch: 349 S. Main St. Also has branches in Texas, California, Indiana, elsewhere.
New home: Being built at Miami Valley Research Park. Will be complete in early 2011.
Donors: 3,585 in 2009.
Tissue grafts: 133,054 in 2009.
KETTERING — Shawn Hunter is about to get more room for his job. Much more room.
The director of research and development for Community Blood Center/Community Tissue Services is looking forward to the organization’s new 90,000-square-foot home at Miami Valley Research Park.
With freed-up space at the operation’s downtown Dayton facility and new space in Kettering, Hunter, 37, of Springboro, envisions a day when the organization may work (or work further) in regenerative medicine and growth and storage of certain stem cells.
“Everybody here knows that some type of cellular therapy — whether it’s stem cells or some other type of cell — is going to become ... more prevalent in the clinics in the next five to 10 years,” Hunter said.
Hunter estimates that he has less than 1,000 square feet for research now. When he first visited the operation’s current downtown home more than three years ago, Hunter was impressed with its standards, but also noticed how little room there was.
“They said at first, ‘We don’t have a lab space set up for you yet,’ ” Hunter recalled with a smile. “You’re going to have an office.”
Tissue services, though, is more than a lab. It’s an organization that tries to harness “lean” manufacturing principles in the interest of cutting waste.
The center has at least four band saws, two Computer Numeric Control (CNC) machines and a CNC lathe such as you might find at any local machine shop, Hunter said. In Kettering, the operation will expand from eight to 14 clean rooms where materials are protected from dust or bacteria.
“There are certain aspects of the new facility that have been specifically designed to incorporate lean manufacturing concepts,” Hunter said. Design kept in mind workflow in and out of clean rooms as well as cutting waste, he said.
Mark VanAllman, executive director of Community Tissue Services, said the new facility can be seen as “a great opportunity to dive into new novel technologies.”
The new facility is being built to be more “linear” in nature, with one step logically following a previous step, he said.
“We hope that it’s going to be showcase,” VanAllman said of the new building.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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