Low-shear, scalable microfluidic sorting of platelets and leukocytes for pooled platelet lysate

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Extem supplies research grade mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to the health research community and islooking to differentiate themselves by providing a proprietary human derived growth media. MSCs have manyapplications that are important to the future health of Canadians, such as: applications in tissue engineering andregenerative medicine; drug screening using human tissues prior to clinical trials; and treatment of disease bymodulating (enhancing or suppressing) the immune system. MSCs are typically grown in fetal bovine serum(FBS), derived from cows. However, in order to avoid xenotropic complications, the stem cell industry ismoving away from products that are derived from non-human species. Other disadvantages of FBS include:batch to batch variability; unexpected cell growth characteristics; and contamination issues. A betterstandardized human derived solution would solve many of these problems. Pooled Platelet Lysate (PPL) hasbeen identified as a viable alternative to FBS. PPL is produced by means of double centrifugation (DC) ofwhole blood. However, existing methods of producing PPL lack rigorous quality control, standardization, andcan activate cells. For example, DC-based PPL can result in an up to 50% loss in cell viability due to activationof cells under fluid shear stress. Extem needs to develop a more economical solution that integrates beneficialquality control and standardization procedures. Extem and microinstrumentation expert Dr. Gray at SimonFraser University (SFU) propose a low shear, high throughput scalable microfluidic whole blood sorter withthe goal of optimizing designs to result in as many viable platelets as possible over a given time period (highthroughput). Individual chips will be optimized both individually and for use in arrays to increase throughput.Chips will be designed with the goal of eventual mass production, with manufacturing constraints consideredin all phases of device design. The development of such a technology will allow Extem and Canadian healthresearchers to remain leaders in the production and application of stem cells by providing MSCs grown in acost-effective human-derived media.