Patent ID: 7399633

Claim:
A kit comprising, in one or more containers, (a) immobilized fibronectin or a fragment thereof; (b) an immobilized Notch agonist comprising an extracellular, Notch-interacting domain of a Delta, a Jagged, or a Serrate protein; and (c) Stem cell factor (SCF) in combination with two or more of Flt-3 ligand (Flt-3), Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Interleukin-3 (IL-3), Interleukin-11 (IL-11), thrombopoietin (TPO), Granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), or granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF); wherein said combination of (a), (b), and (c) are together effective to maintain a proliferating hematopoietic stem cell population comprising a majority of cells that do not terminally differentiate for a time period beyond which hematopoietic stem cells not in the presence of (a), (b), and (c) stop proliferating and/or die while exposed to them in culture.