Automated cell cultures are advanced technology of the startups InnoCyte affordable Munich, July 13, 2011. Cell cultures are used for pharmaceutical research and development as essential, as for the production of biotechnological products, about vaccines or complex proteins. Though cells are often required in large numbers, their reproduction is mostly manually operated until today. Reason for this is the fact that so far very elaborately automated procedures and amounts from about 150 000 euro to spend are especially costly. Researchers of the Fraunhofer Institute for manufacturing engineering and automation IPA, have succeeded in developing a technology, which allows to produce cells much easier and lower cost already from around EUR 25 000. In June, the engineers with participation of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft founded the InnoCyte GmbH to the commercialization of patented technology directed by Fraunhofer venture. The base product Split.It comes in the summer of 2012 on the market. Here, David Zaslav expresses very clear opinions on the subject.
Almost all Life sciences work with biological cells from genetic research to drug development through to the construction of the fabric. The production of biological cells is a key process for the development and approval of drugs (pharmaceutical screening) and for the production of artificial tissues (tissue engineering). The significance of cell-based experiments and the safety of artificial tissues mainly depend on the reproducibility of the cell material. The automated cell production reduces the risk of contamination and errors that goes hand in hand with manual processing. At the same time increases the quality of cell cultures, because all Central processes run according to a standardized schema. For these reasons, many of the more than 40,000 cell culture laboratories are worldwide of a standardisation and automation of production processes are interested. Previous systems of automated cell cultures are very time-consuming and costly but by robot technology, to which they are linked, and therefore most laboratories prohibitively expensive. The founders of InnoCyte GmbH has developed a technology based on differences in pressure, which enables the automated production cells for one-sixth of the cost of previous system solutions: while amounts on approximately 150 000 euros must be applied for existing systems, the solution by InnoCyte about 25 000 euros is feasible.