Bioreactor infrastructure for upscaled culture of organoids and tumoroids.

In this application, we request financing for three benchtop CERO 3D Cell Culture Bioreactor units for the culture of 3D cell cultures, including spheroids and organoids, that are increasingly being used in biomedical research. Currently, 3D organoids and spheroids are cultured in traditional cell culture plates under static or shaking (using orbital shaker) conditions in a standard CO2 cell culture incubator, which is suboptimal for long-term and large-scale culture of spheroids and organoids. A bioreactor system would take organoid and spheroid culture at the campus to a next level in terms of quality (improved viability, maturation and homogeneity) as well as quantity. Each CERO 3D Cell culture bioreactor unit can maintain four 50 mL organoid cultures, including monitoring and control of temperature, pH and carbon dioxide levels. In total, the envisaged bioreactor infrastructure will be able to accommodate twelve simultaneous organoid cultures under highly controlled conditions. The envisaged CERO 3D Bioreactor units will be applied for multiple research domains at the University of Antwerp, and more specifically for upscaled culture of stem cell-derived spheroids and organoids, tumoroids derived from primary tumour material of patients, stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, stem cell-derived cartilage tissue and intestinal organoids. Furthermore, based on our own experience in upscaled organoid culture, the instalment of bioreactor units has become an urgent need to progress towards future valorisation activities.

Keywords:ORGANOID, CANCER, STEM CELLS

Disciplines:Cell growth and development, Cellular interactions and extracellular matrix, Stem cell biology, Cancer biology, Tissue engineering