FibraStage™
A Disposable, High-Yield Cell Culture System

Introducing FibraStage, a disposable cell culture system that produces high product yields while decreasing labor demands over traditional cell culture devices.

FibraStage is an inexpensive and easy-to-use system, capable of producing mg quantities of protein, virus or biomass from a wide variety of anchorage-dependent or suspension cultures. Depending on your cell line and desired end product, up to four FibraStage bottles can produce yields of 2.4 x 10 ¹⁰ with minimal effort. A single FibraStage bottle can produce a high-cell density of 6 x 10 ⁹. Here's how:

Disposable FibraStage bottles are pre-sterilized and pre-loaded with 10 grams of FibraCel disks and each bottle can hold up to 500 mL of liquid. FibraCel disks are a unique solid-support matrix for producing high-density cultures. Cells grow in, on and between the porous, multi-layer disks, which provide an extremely high surface area for cell growth, equivalent to 12,000 cm2. To obtain an equivalent surface area of a single FibraStage bottle, one would need to maintain numerous spinners, dozens of roller bottles and hundreds of T-flasks.

Labor Savings

• Maintaining growth in one FibraStage bottle vs. dozens or even hundreds of T-flasks, spinners, bottles or bags is far more efficient in terms of time and labor

Furthermore, cells remain entrapped in the disk bed during the entire run, keeping the medium virtually cell free. This further reduces labor by:

• simplifying media replacement and simplifying product recovery.

The system also eliminates:

• autoclaving, as bottles are pre-sterilized and ready to go
• cleaning - as without the need to autoclave, there is no need to validate the cleaning process
• lengthy learning curves, as the system is plug-and-play simple
• costly start-up, as there is no need for expensive designs, nor piped-in steam, water lines or other utilities; and
• cross-contamination between batches - simply dispose of the bottle when done.

Operation is Simple

Gas exchange and media mixing are accomplished simply and efficiently by placing up to four FibraStage bottles in a FibraStage device, which slowly raises and lowers the media level in the bottles. This up-down movement collapses or expands bellows at the base of each bottle. In the "up" position, the media is forced through the disk bed, facilitating nutrient feeding and removal of waste from the cells. During the "down" cycle, cells are exposed to air and gasses. This process enables efficient oxygen transfer to the cells, while providing the cells with nutrients. A controller allows setting variable speeds for the up and down motions, and variable "hold times" during which the cells are exposed to media or gas. A 0.22 μm PTFE filter is supplied in the bottle cap for ventilation.

Added Advantages

• Each FibraStage system holds up to four FibraStage bottles, making this an ideal screening device to test varying media formulations or cell lines. (The new continuous culture system accommodates three bottle.)
• The compact system fits into most standard CO2 incubators*. The controller is magnetized so it can be conveniently stored on the outside wall of the incubator.
  * Incubators are available from NBS or can be user-supplied.

New Continuous Cultue System

A new continuous culture system with pumps is available for constant exchange of nutrients, eliminating the labor of media exchange and avoiding possible shock to cells during culture. Bottles are equipped with additional inlet & outlet lines for re-circulating media to external 250 mL, 500 mL or 2L storage vessels. Includes console, controller, 3-pump module with two peristaltic pump heads and tubing. Shown with optional third pump head & tubing. Programmable and On/Off pumping control eliminates the requirement to calibrate the flow rate and simplifies the setting of re-circulation rate for each bottle.