We have received a grant from the State Bank of Saxony for the development of microcarriers designed for xeno-free induced pluripotent stem cell culture. The outlook for the technology is for applications in iPSC banking, allogenic therapies, as well as the clean meat industry.
The project termed Beads4iPSC will be focused on solving the unique bottlenecks presented by scale-up expansion of iPSC, in combination with well defined, serum-free and xeno-free medias which present unique challenges.
The expansion of high-quality iPSCs in 3D is still extraordinarily difficult as the industry lacks reproducible protocols and methods that allow seamless transition from 100 Mio. to 100 billion scale iPSC culture. The sensitive nature of iPSCs makes it particularly challenging to cultivate them in 3D. ‘’Our development of microcarriers will have a major impact on the advancement towards manufacturing reliably and robustly clinically relevant doses of iPSC for cell therapy as well as exciting applications in cell cultured meat’’ explains Dr. Sandra Segeletz, project coordinator of Beads4iPSC and Head of Innovation at denovoMATRIX.
