Customisable Microcarriers

Elevating your Bioproduction with Sophisticated Microcarrier, Hydrogels and µFluidic Solutions

Technology

TCS Biosciences is pleased to announce our partnership with Smart MCs who specialise in designing microcarriers with customisable features, tailored to specific cell types and applications. Smart MCs' microcarriers enable optimised cell culture processes while minimising cell loss, resulting in scalable and resource-efficient cell proliferation.

Smart MCs are key innovators in the field of cellular cultivation, developing custom microcarriers made from biodegradable materials. While microcarriers have been a staple in cell culture for many years, limited customisability continues to present challenges. Many existing technologies are constrained by inefficient harvesting, elevated costs, and complex processing steps, which hinder scalability and consistency in research and production. Reliable microcarriers are a vital factor for scaling in vivo adherent cell culture (e.g., cellular therapeutics and agriculture).

To break through these barriers, Smart MCs has introduced flexible microcarriers made from edible and biodegradable materials, fine-tuned for a variety of applications across size, stiffness, surface roughness, texture, topography and surface chemistry.

Core Product Features

Product Highlights

Flexible Materials

Smart MCs provides a versatile range of microcarriers manufactured from carefully selected biopolymers, designed to meet the diverse requirements of applications including human clinical trials, vaccine production, and cultivated meat development.

Their production process is built on the use of biocompatible materials only, without the need for harsh chemicals, ensuring both safety and performance. Drawing on deep expertise in biochemistry, Smart MCs offers microcarriers with customisable properties, including texture, stiffness, and flexibility, allowing for tailored solutions that align with your specific research and production goals.

Customisable

Customising microcarriers is one of the most essential factors when culturing cells of different types and species. Smart MCs ' microcarriers are tailored to each application with defined features including stiffness, size, surface roughness and topography.

Streamlined Workflow

Due to the dissolvable nature of Smart MCs' microcarriers, the cell harvesting step can be eliminated in many applications, such as direct scaffolding or carrier digestion, helping to avoid the significant cell loss often associated with traditional methods (up to 50%).

When cell harvesting is required, the microcarriers are designed to dissolve efficiently using enzymatic solutions (e.g. Trypsin or TrypLE) or enzyme-free methods, supporting near-complete cell recovery and improved process efficiency.

Scalable

Smart MCs' innovative production method utilises simple, food-grade ingredients and a streamlined, low-waste manufacturing process. This approach ensures the microcarriers remain highly affordable, making them an ideal solution for large-scale applications such as cultured meat production and beyond.

Embedded Growth Factor Delivery

Smart MCs' microcarriers can be customised not only in structure, but also in functionality. Growth factors or antimicrobial factors can be embedded directly into the microcarriers, enabling controlled, slow release throughout the culture process. This built-in delivery system supports consistent cell development and reduces the need for repeated supplementation, enhancing both efficiency and performance.

Microcarrier Products

Growth Factor Embedding

Engrave Your Growth Factor for Slow Release During Culture The ability to customise the microcarriers goes beyond physical attributes where different growth or antimicrobial factors can be embedded in the microcarriers which would act as a slow-release function throughout the culture.

Price Competitive

Owing to the revolutionary production approach, Smart MCs use basic food ingredients with a simplified production workflow that is not wasteful. Thus, the microcarriers are affordable and provide a scalable solution for large-scale applications including cultured meat.

Cell Types

Pluripotent stem cells (PSC), neural stem cells (NSC), mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), organoids, 3D culture, human embryonic kidney cells (HEK), Chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO), adherent cells, fibroblasts, chondrocytes, hepatocytes.

Applications

Vaccine production, stem cell culture / expansion / differentiation, viral vectors, tissue engineering, 3D bioprinting, cell therapy, cultivated meat, large scale cell expansion, bioreactors, scale-up.

Microcarriers for Cultivated Meat

The cultivated meat industry has increased demand for microcarriers, but current options have significant limitations. These limitations include high cost, typically over $2,000 per kg of meat, high cell loss rates of over 50%, and lack of edibility, as microcarriers may be made of non-food grade materials like plastic or glass, which can lead to particulates ending up in the final product. These limitations make current microcarriers unsuitable for the cultivated meat industry and require the development of new solutions that are cost-effective, efficient, and safe for consumption.

Limiting Factors with Scaled up Cell Culture

Scaling up cell culture can be challenging due to the limited surface area for cell growth. Traditional small-scale methods, such as plastic flasks, become impractical when attempting to grow cells on a large scale. Technologies like multi-layer flasks and cell factories can improve the surface area-to-volume ratio, but they are not scalable solutions. Bioreactors, which are large stirring tanks, offer a more efficient and automated solution for cell culture. However, these are not suitable for growing cells that require a substrate, such as adherent cells. To overcome this limitation, microcarriers have been developed to allow the growth of these types of cells in suspension in a bioreactor. Despite the challenges, advances in technology and research are helping to mitigate limitations and enable successful large-scale cell culture.

Online Catalogue

• Smart Biomaterials and µ-Solutions

Get In Touch

For more information, detailed product specifications, or to place an order, please get in touch with our team today.