Scale-up of livestock iPSC cultures for cultivated meat

Cultivated meat is an exciting solution to the growing global demand for high quality protein and could revolutionise the way that meat is produced. Roslin Technologies (Roslin Tech) is bringing revolutionary animal cell lines to the global cultivated meat sector which include livestock induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) that have infinite self-renewal properties and are capable of directed differentiation at lab scale to the key cell types – muscle and fat - needed for cultivated meat. Roslin Tech is currently developing iPSC cell lines from ruminant species and intends to extend its commercial offering to other types of cells.

Challenge

A key challenge for the sector is the cost-effective scale-up of cell culture to generate sufficient biomass for product development. In this project, Roslin Tech wanted to assess scale up culture conditions in industry-relevant systems to demonstrate its porcine iPSC’s capacity to achieve high cell density in suspension culture.

Solution

Thanks to IBioIC’s Facilities Access Fund, Roslin Tech was able to access IBioIC’s own FlexBio facility. Roslin Tech’s inducible pluripotent stem cells were transferred to FlexBio and scaled up in a 7L bioreactor. A microbial bioreactor was modified to allow the project to take place, which offered industrially relevant insights into how standard equipment can be adapted for stem cell growth.

Outcome

This successful project gave the team key insights into mechanical and nutritional stimuli impacting cell growth and viability during scale up. The data gathered will be used in further projects funded by an InnovateUK SMART grant.