Stem Cells: Facilitating Scale Up: Controlled Stem Cell Cultivation In Stirred Suspension Bioreactors

By M. Grolms, R. Olmer, U. Martin and R. Zweigerdt

Stem cells have been envisioned as becoming an unlimited cell source for regenerative medicine. However most applications require a large number of stem cells and it is difficult to translate recently applied cultivation methods into the larger scale desired. Stirred suspension bioreactors in particular offer a suitable option. These bioreactors have been successfully introduced at the Hannover Medical School, Germany.

Basic stem cell research is primarily concerned with biological aspects, such as the influence of growth factors and media composition on cell growth and differentiation, whereas current studies also focus on the optimisation of cultivation processes. The main purpose of these efforts is to enable a larger scale process. Traditionally stem cells are cultivated in static 2D culture devices and a simple transfer of this cultivation technique to a larger scale is not possible. State-of-the-art cultivation methods, such as hanging drops or plating upon non-tissue culturetreated plates can also hardly enable a larger scale process.

©As published in Biotech International April/May 2011