SBIR Phase I: Surface Immobilized Growth Factors for Low Cost Serum-Free Cell Culture

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目将创建一个微载体与固定化生长因子的贴壁培养细胞。 细胞培养生物材料的这一进展有望消除与液体培养基中生长因子相关的变异性，同时提高细胞培养工作流程效率。 该项目旨在确定一种有效的反应机制，用于将蛋白质（包括动物血清和纯化的成纤维细胞生长因子（FGF））偶联到先前开发的磁性藻酸盐微载体的表面。 预计所得产品将比传统的烧瓶培养方法具有显着的益处，并将为下一代药物发现和治疗提供技术，因为原代细胞和干细胞成为选择的细胞类型。 该项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是使用固定化生长因子来推进对细胞-基质相互作用的基本理解。目前，培养原代细胞和干细胞的主要成本是细胞生长培养基，其含有昂贵的纯化生长因子。减少培养所需的生长因子的量将直接降低每个细胞的成本。此外，该产品将证明对治疗应用有价值，包括基于细胞的治疗，其中cGMP生长因子将特别昂贵。 最后，生长因子偶联微球将是一个有用的基础研究平台，了解“固定”的生长因子在体内的作用，这是重要的创造生物支架和再生植入物。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will create a microcarrier with immobilized growth factors for adherent cultured cells. This advancement in cell culture biomaterials promises to remove the variability associated with growth factors in liquid media while increasing cell culture workflow efficiency. The project is to identify an efficient reaction mechanism for coupling protein, including animal serum and purified fibroblast growth factor (FGF), to the surface of a previously developed magnetic alginate microcarrier. The resulting product is anticipated to have significant benefits over traditional flask culture methods and will provide enabling technology to next generation drug discovery and therapeutics as primary and stem cells become the cell types of choice. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is the use of immobilized growth factors to advance the basic understanding of cell-substrate interactions. Currently, the major cost for culturing primary and stem cells is the cell growth media, which contains costly purified growth factors. Reducing the amount of growth factors necessary for culture will directly reduce the cost per cell. Furthermore, this product will prove valuable for therapeutic applications including cell-based therapies in which cGMP growth factors would be especially costly. Finally, a growth factor-conjugated microsphere will be a useful basic research platform for understanding the role of "immobilized" growth factors in vivo, which is important for creating bio-scaffolds and regenerative implants.