Every day, researchers around the world work tirelessly to unlock discoveries with mammalian cell culture experiments yet the full potential of this work remains untapped.

Optimizing cellular health with adjustments to individual media components has established value in scientific results. But the problem is that adjusting media to control for each variable is so much work. Along the same lines, it’s rare for labs to evaluate the material waste streams they generate by using commercial, off-the-shelf tissue culture media.

The good news is that exciting progress in the field of cell and gene therapies is driving accessible economies of scale in cell culture experimentation. This is the right moment for an instrument that expedites the science and circumvents material costs for both academic research and industrial labs.

Cell culture techniques have played a vital role in many scientific breakthroughs, from the development of vaccines to the understanding of how cancer spreads – and demand for applications is growing.  Simply put, cell culture is essential for today’s pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical manufacturing. The challenge is that establishing the optimal cell culture media conditions for a cell line, primary cell types, or induced pluripotent stem cells is laborious. Primary cells in particular are the focus of intense research and continue to be notoriously difficult. Scale-up can be an especially painful challenge. Methods that save scientists time and materials will bring us closer to cell and gene therapy breakthroughs that could treat today’s incurable diseases with one-time permanent cures.

Another challenge facing life science work is sustainability as the production and distribution of cell culture media can be damaging to the environment. In fact, in 2019, the Journal of Cleaner Production published research showing the pharma industry produces 13% more carbon emissions making medicines than car manufacturers do assembling vehicles!

That’s where Krakatoa™ comes in.

In February 2022, Nucleus Biologics in conjunction with its sister company Stoic Bio, launched Krakatoa Media Maker, designed to make cell culture media production and distribution more efficient and environmentally friendly. Nucleus Biologics is an authorized distributor of Krakatoa which uses media pods made of biodegradable material to solubilize sterile media at the bench. One Krakatoa pod solubilizes 500 mL at the point of use.  

This media maker represents a new mindset of sustainability that addresses many environmental concerns. Here’s why Krakatoa is a game-changer for biologists aiming for sustainable lab operations—and there are some unexpected bonuses scientific organizations can win when they use it.  

Making Cell Culture work Better for the environment

Compared to traditional media, the lightweight Krakatoa pods produce 65% less greenhouse gases per 500 mL of media produced because of reduced shipping and packaging weight. The biodegradable pods also don’t use single-use plastics or PET bottles, which end up in landfills or are sometimes incinerated. 

Another advantage is that Krakatoa pods can be stored at ambient temperatures. Many types of growth media require cold storage. The strict temperature requirements, especially during transport, take massive amounts of energy. According to a 2021 report by Cenex, an energy and research organization, the diesel transport refrigeration units (TRU) that usually ship cold pharma products produce about eight tons each of tailpipe CO2 a year—the equivalent of four normal cars.  

According to the U.S. Federal Energy Management program, laboratories use significantly more electricity and water than other industries because of the energy-intensive manufacturing and the strict temperature and storage requirements. With Krakatoa, life science can eliminate a significant portion of the carbon emissions, water usage, and electricity usage associated with cold storage and transport. 

COST-EFFECTIVE COMPARED TO CONVENTIONAL CUSTOM MEDIA 

Several leading pharmaceutical companies have already proven that lowering carbon emissions doesn’t have to sink your budget—it can actually be profitable. In research published in 2021 in Future Healthcare Journal, researchers compared carbon emissions and financial data from the 12 largest pharmaceutical companies. As companies put carbon-reducing measures in place, the measures did not have any negative financial effects. In fact, the study suggests that it can even be profitable in terms of boosting employee morale and attracting and retaining talent.  

Krakatoa is now bringing those cost savings to gene and cell therapy manufacturing. In addition to being more environmentally sustainable, the product can also save money. Because Krakatoa pods require far less packaging, shipping and cold storage costs, they are cheaper than liquid cell culture media. On average, Krakatoa pods are 1/10th the cost of conventional liquid custom media. Users can completely recoup the cost of the Krakatoa machine by the time they’ve ordered 48 pods.

FLEXIBLE CUSTOMIZATION AND SCALABILITY 

Most pharma and biopharma companies purchase cell culture media in one of two forms: powder or liquid. Each has pros and cons, but the Krakatoa is proving itself to be the best of both worlds.  

By the time pharmaceutical companies are manufacturing products in mass batches or moving beyond stage II or III clinical trials, they’re probably using dry-format powder media that is hydrated at the lab. The major advantage of dry-format media is its efficiency. As a dry product, it’s easier to ship and store. It’s also easier to scale large batches for mass manufacturing.  

However, it has several problems. According to a study done by BioPlan Associates, some of the top frustrations with powder media include problems with sterility, lack of uniformity when mixing, and being time-consuming and labor-intensive.  

On the other hand, expensive liquid media is sterile and does not have the same contamination risks as powder. Because it needs fewer preparation steps, liquid media offers faster production time and reduced manufacturing costs. Liquid media can be ordered in smaller batches, so it’s also ideal for personalized biotherapeutics. The more customizable approach to medicine is growing: the global personalized medicine market size is projected to reach US$ 5.7 trillion by 2030.

Krakatoa sits at the intersection of these advantages. Its small pods are ideal for smaller manufacturing batches for products such as personalized biotherapeutics, much like liquid media. With a minimum order of only 500 mL, Krakatoa can help companies iterate quickly on small batches with smaller volumes of test formulations and less testing waste.  

Krakatoa also holds the scalability advantage of dry powder. With only a single process to validate, ordering from Krakatoa makes the business side of scalability simple—all while being more profitable and less time-consuming and labor-intensive than dry powder rehydration.  

CONCLUSION 

Krakatoa is more than just a sustainable option for cell culture media; it’s a new way of thinking about how to make lab operations more environmentally friendly. This pod-based media maker is designed to reduce custom media development time, materials and their associated energy waste, so researchers can fine tune cell health and bioprocess results.