Evaluation of the Corning Ascent Fixed Bed Bioreactor System for The Adherent Expansion of Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
Presenter: Misha A. Teale, Research Associate, Zurich University of Applied Science, Wädenswil, Switzerland
Abstract: Allogeneic cell therapy (AlloCT) has gained remarkable clinical and commercial momentum in recent years, offering patients a more affordable, accessible, and sustainable alternative to existing treatment options. Comprehensively characterized following their derivation from consenting and healthy donors, human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) serve as a particularly attractive starting point for AlloCT, given their ability to produce a broad range of therapies from a single cell line. Despite their potential, scaling hiPSC expansion processes to meet clinical demand, especially prior to differentiation, remains challenging, as stirred bioreactors, often deemed the most scalable option, may not be universally suitable depending on the target product.
This presentation therefore highlights the evaluation of Corning’s scalable single-use Ascent Fixed Bed Bioreactor System as an alternative for the adherent expansion of hiPSCs, discussing the particulars of process development and comparing its performance to two other single-use bioreactors of a similar scale. Accordingly, our preliminary findings indicate that the Ascent was able to produce over 4.5 billion high-quality hiPSCs within five days at benchtop scale. Such yields, once differentiated, not only enable multi-patient treatment for a range of diseases, but also lay the foundation for further process development work directed at scalable differentiation and industrial production.
