Media

Overview of cell therapies

Cell-based therapies involve the introduction of viable cells into a patient’s body through implantation, grafting, or injection for a therapeutic purpose. Cell therapies are used to treat cancers such as leukemias or lymphomas and for tissue regeneration. Cell therapy is an active area of clinical research and development as well.

Because cell therapies use viable cells, producing them involves determining and maintaining suitable growth and storage conditions for different types and lines of cells. During the production of cell therapies, you need a broad variety of reagents and components, including cell culture media and media for isolation or separation by methods such as density gradient centrifugation.

Cell therapy production

The major steps of cell therapy manufacturing include isolation of cells from tissue or blood, gene transfer (for genetically engineered cells such as CAR-T), expansion of cells, harvesting and formulation, and cryopreservation for storage or transport.

Important considerations for raw materials for cell therapy manufacturing processes include:

• The source and identity of the materials
• Purity and impurity or presence of contaminants
• Lot-to-lot consistency
• Storage requirements and stability

Cell therapy media

Density gradient media

Separation or isolation of cells for cell therapies often occurs by density gradient centrifugation, which separates particles and cells in a sample (such as blood or bone marrow) based on density. We offer density gradient media for clinical research purposes as well as for cell therapy manufacturing.

Cell culture media

Cells are cultivated in a culture medium such as a T cell expansion medium during cell therapy production. Cell culture media contain components that support cell growth and proliferation, such as growth factors, amino acids, carbohydrates, and buffers to regulate pH.

Cell therapy media FAQs

Below are answers to some frequently asked questions about cell therapy media.

What are cell therapy media?

Cell therapy media are products used to culture or expand cells or in the isolation of cells from donor samples. Media are essential components during isolating, engineering, and expanding a population of therapeutic cells.

What are the types of cell therapy media?

The main types of cell therapy media are cell expansion media and density gradient media. We offer a broad variety of cell therapy media including:

• Ficoll™ PM density gradient medium
• Ficoll-Paque™ density gradient medium
• Percoll™ and Percoll™ PLUS density gradient media
• Xuri™ T cell expansion medium

What is T cell expansion medium?

T cell expansion media are formulations that help ensure optimized T cell expansion. They regulate the proliferation of antigen-specific lymphocytes to ensure effective response and avoid immunopathology.