Fabrication of magnetic microcarriers for stem cell expansion

The use of microcarriers in dynamic cell culture allowed, in the last years, to increase the cell culture production yields for stem cell expansion. This increase of the production yields is strongly demanded by the crucial need of high numbers of stem cells to be employed in emerging cell therapy strategies in the framework of regenerative medicine. This project focuses on the production of biopolymer-core magnetic MCs obtained by an organic-solvent-free method and provided with a biofunctional coating to enhance cell adhesion. MCs are characterized and employed as cell culture substrates for the expansion of human adipose derived mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (hASCs) in semistatic culture conditions. After optimization of the properties of these MCs in previous studies, the study reported herein represents the first step towards the possible application of these magnetic MCs as cell culture substrate for dynamic cell culture. The employment of magnetic MCs in dynamic cell culture would be innovative and beneficial, leading to a simplification of the cell harvesting procedure and allowing an easy sampling for inline cell characterization.