Roslin Technologies have started to further optimise scale up for their porcine cells and have conducted initial prototype development, after the successful awarding of two grants from the IBioIC and Innovate UK. They have also taken on an intern from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering to further this research.

The recent investment awards have given the company the opportunity to dedicate research to this key challenge. Previously, scale up of cells and adipogenesis for the porcine cell lines had only been attempted in 2D plates. 

Elena Silverstein, who has joined Roslin Tech on a 6-month industrial placement, was tasked with initial testing and development of scale up techniques. The project aim was to scale up the differentiation process of iPS cells into adipocytes in a 500 mL bioreactor. 

Elena started working with 500 mL bioreactors to assess media composition (to reduce the cost and find alternatives to animal components) and optimum growth conditions for undifferentiated cells. Since then, she has created initial prototypes using Roslin Tech’s porcine iPS cells. The first two produced, a sausage and a dumpling, contain 10-20% cultivated pig cells along with other plant-based ingredients (see images below).  

Elena said: “The challenge was keeping track of cell growth in a larger volume. With cell aggregates of various masses floating around 500 mL, finding the best sampling and measuring techniques took some time. Seeing 2 grams of cells next to 8 grams of plant ingredients looked surprisingly significant when making the dumpling; it felt more real even though they were stem cells.”  

She added, “turning pig iPSCs into adipocytes in a bioreactor is a huge goal with a lot of possible routes to take. It will be incredibly interesting to see what happens.” 

This has clear applications for the cultivated meat industry. In order to enable large-scale production, cells must be able to differentiate in a bioreactor, rather than on plates which would act as a bottleneck to production. After these successful tests, this work can be continued in larger bioreactors then applied to commercial-scale production bioreactors, which will be used by the industry as standard. 

Roslin Technologies offers a portfolio of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) and other cells to the cultivated meat industry globally. Since they started focusing on the development of iPS cell lines in 2018, their main focus has been on the derivation, analysis, and small-scale growth of these lines.