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R&D Focus

Cytotwister to Obtain Massive Cultured Cells

Monolayer cell culture may have significant benefits for the development of biomedicine technology as it can be used for production of protein, cancer research, tissue regeneration, and more. However, current technology for monolayer cell culture is still ineffective because the cell quantity demanded for mesenchymal stem cell treatment is about 1~9 x 10⁶ cells per kg of body weight, yet the stem cell content for adult tissue is extremely scarce at about only 0.001-1%. To address the issue of insufficient cell source, ITRI developed Cytotwister, which applies an ingenious design, destroying the three-dimensional (3D) structure to harvest cells. The technology can easily obtain complete cells from the carrier, not only enhancing the cell recovery rate, but further reducing the cost.

Cytotwister is composed of polymers, which form a 3D structure for increasing the surface area provided for adherence and growth of a large number of cells. When harvesting the cells, the 3D structure of the cell culture carrier is destroyed and cells are released. This allows cells to function evenly with the enzyme, and then use the enzyme for cells adhering to the carrier to break away and obtain the cells, thereby enhancing cell recovery rate through structural destruction.

There are currently already some cell culture carriers on the market that claim to be capable of conducting 3D culture in order to greatly increase the number of adhering cells. However, since the cell culture carrier structure cannot be destroyed, it is difficult to access cells in the deep layers of the structure, and the cell recovery rate is low. Therefore such an approach can only be used for secretory product collection and cannot enable access to a large number of the cultured cells. ITRI’s Cytotwister, in contrast, allows a destroyable structure of the cell culture carrier—it can increase the carrier surface area via compressing the 3D structure, or decrease it by loosening the structure. This feature makes ITRI’s technology distinct from existing products in the following:

• Capable of easily accessing internal in-depth cells from the carrier structure
• High cell recovery rate
• High survival rate for recovered cells
• Small space required
• Low cost

Other advantages of Cytotwister include its easy control over various environmental factors and individual differences between experimental models. In sum, Cytotwister is an effective way to rapidly obtain massive cultured cells, while reducing the consumption of labor, material resources and time.