Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2018-2019)

Mammalian cells used to produce various vaccines in bioreactors are typically grown on a support matrixx000D
termed a microcarrier, which can be made of a number of different materials including DEAE-dextran, glass,x000D
polystyrene plastic, acrylamide, collagen, and alginate. Commercial microcarriers are only available in smoothx000D
surface, spherical forms. Spheres have the smallest surface-area-to-volume ratio, and therefore the least surfacex000D
space available for cells to attach for a given volume. In addition to their spherical shape, the smooth surface ofx000D
available microcarriers makes it difficult to increase the surface area for cell culture capacity improvement.x000D
Another challenge in current microcarrier-based cell culture is that the microcarrier surface needs to bex000D
chemically modified prior to cell attachment and detachment (recovery) - often involving expensive enzymes.x000D
The Hwang group at Ryerson has developed a technique that can produce microcarriers with designed shapesx000D
and tuneable surface wrinkles that can significantly increase their surface area. When used for cell culture,x000D
these microcarriers can greatly improve cell attaching capacity. In addition, the microcarrier surface is notx000D
chemically modified, which simplifies the cell attaching and recovery process without using enzymes.x000D
Sanofi Pasteur is a world leading vaccine manufacturing company, and its head office in Toronto has Canada'sx000D
largest vaccine R&D facility. Sanofi manufactures several vaccines through mammalian cell culture usingx000D
microcarriers. This Engage grant will enable Sanofi and the Ryerson team to begin working towardsx000D
successfully integrating these non-spherical-microcarrier-based technologies into their vaccine production. As ax000D
result, cell culture efficiency and vaccine production at Sanofi can be significantly improved in the future.