FullStem
Next-Generation Technology for Stem Cell Mass Culture

Medical science and biotechnology are on a constant lookout for techniques that can regenerate tissues damaged from a disease or injury rather than relying on transplantations. Regenerative medicine is one such technique that seeks to use methods such as therapeutic stem cells to regrow, repair or replace damaged cells. However, the industrialization of regenerative medicine is slow due to the failure to produce large-scale cultures for stem cells. High costs and limited cell production are often two main obstructions to the hand-made production of stem cell cultures.

As a specialist and doctor of regenerative medicine, Shunmei Chiba realized that the practical and appropriate large-scale production of stem cells for clinical use is necessary to expand the advanced therapy for safety use like common drugs. He founded FullStem to develop and focus on automated large-scale culture systems using non-woven fabrics to maximize the number and retain the potential of the stem cell. The company's system can be a de facto standard of cell-producing methods for clinical in any purpose. "We propose next-generation stem cell mass culture platform technology,” says Chiba, founder and CEO, FullStem.

Researchers need to use their hands and eyes with an abundant cell culture experience on two-dimensional dishes to keep the potential and expansion of stem cells. FullStem offers Achieva-CS, an automated large-scale and high-density culture system for stem cells using non-woven fabrics as a 3D scaffold.

It provides 3D cultures on the fabrics to replicate living stem cells in the body to resemble circumstances retaining their original phenotype and potential. The single and double bottle system contains the appropriate number of fabrics generated from 10^7 to 2x10^9 of mesenchymal stem cells.The unique culture system based on the simple up-down motion of the table under fabrics inside the closed system among controlled air in the 1L bottles regulates exchanging gas and mixing medium efficiently. The smallest size (W55cm x D43cm x H73cm) of the device can be set inside the biosafety cabinet. The system also has WiFi operating and monitoring support system and is useful for beginner users. “Our automated large-scale culture system, Achieva-CS can produce not only over 10^9 mesenchymal stem cells easily without loss of their potential but also two times higher exosomes than conventional 2D cultures,” says Chiba.

FullStem also has insights into increasing exosomes produced from adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells. FullStem’s system, combined with the factors increasing exosomes, generates over 80 times higher stem cells than the physiological limitation by conventional 2D culture method by hands. This way, the company contributes advanced therapy for more patients.

In an instance, an organization approached FullStem after using another large-scale culture device for clinical cell therapy that resulted in differentiation of the cultured cells and loss of the phenotype. FullStem helped the client to produce a large scale while successfully retaining their phenotype.

Chiba explains that while it is extremely difficult to recover cultured cells on 3D fabrics to produce vaccines and antibodies for a long time, FullStem’s system can gently and efficiently recover the cells from fabrics. The simple up-down process maximizes the superiority of the usage of fabrics. It can also defeat the third party for size, cell volume and keeping the potential of stem cell eliminating the sheer stress occurring while exchanging medium and gas by stirring and continuous flow.