Challenges And Solutions Of Scalable Cultivation For Anchorage Dependent Cells In Single-Use Bioreactor

By Brian Lee, Yas Hashimura, Daniel Giroux, Marcos Sousa, Joao Clemente, Manuel Carrondo, Siddharth Gupta, Michael McCaman, and Yong-Jae Kim

Microcarrier (MC)-based suspension culture processes have been used to culture anchorage-dependent cells in bioreactors. However, scale-up of the process for high cell growth and productivity poses many challenges such as:

1. Achieving reliable cell attachment to MCs during seeding
2. Maintaining consistent physical and chemical environment
3. Achieving homogeneous MC suspension in a vessel with low power input and low shear stress to the cells

The Vertical-Wheel single-use bioreactor system utilizes a vertically-oriented impeller to impart low shear stress while achieving efficient liquid mixing and homogeneous MC suspension. These studies highlight the benefits of the PBS Vertical-Wheel mixing technology for anchorage dependent cell cultivation for both vaccine and cell therapy applications as a scalable solution for MC-based processes.