Peer-Reviewed Study Confirms Smart MCs’ Customisable, Dissolvable Microcarriers Enable Scalable, High-Yield Cell Production

A newly published study in Biomedical Materials validates Smart MCs’ X1 microcarriers, a fully customisable and dissolvable platform for large-scale adherent cell culture. The gelatin-based carriers were shown to outperform a widely used commercial benchmark across multiple sectors, including cultivated meat, regenerative medicine, and vaccine production. This article breaks down what X1 microcarriers are, why their design matters, and the key findings from the study.

Smart MCs Pty Ltd is proud to announce the publication of a major study in the journal Biomedical Materials, validating the performance of our proprietary X1 Microcarriers, a customisable, dissolvable microcarriers designed for large-scale adherent cell culture.

The study, titled “Maximising adherent cell production via customisable and dissolvable bio-polymer microcarriers,” demonstrates how tuning physical characteristics of X1 microcarriers such as stiffness, surface charge, and particle size can significantly improve cell proliferation, harvesting efficiency, and biological outcomes across a range of applications including cultivated meat, stem cell therapies, and vaccine manufacturing.

What Are Microcarriers, and Why Do They Matter?

Microcarriers are tiny beads that provide surface area for cells to grow in suspension. They are essential for cultivating adherent cells, those that must attach to a surface to proliferate, within stirred bioreactors. Compared to traditional 2D culture in petri dishes or flasks, microcarrier-based culture allows for much greater cell yields in a smaller volume, making them crucial for:

• Cultured meat production
• Stem cell therapy manufacturing
• Viral vaccine and gene therapy production

By increasing the available surface area inside a bioreactor, microcarriers enable industrial-scale cell growth. But while the concept is powerful, the choice of material and design greatly impacts performance.

Why Traditional Microcarriers Fall Short

Most commercial microcarriers are made from materials like polystyrene (plastic) or dextran (a synthetic sugar polymer). These materials are inert, stable, and compatible with basic cell growth, but they introduce several practical limitations:

• Non-dissolvable:
  Cells must be separated from the carrier through mechanical filtration or centrifugation, which increases the risk of cell loss, damage, and contamination.
• Not biodegradable or edible:
  In applications like cultivated meat, these materials can’t remain in the final product. Removing them adds time, cost, and regulatory complexity.
• Fixed properties:
  Commercial microcarriers typically have one size, one stiffness, and one surface chemistry, regardless of the cell type. This limits their adaptability to different bioprocesses.

These drawbacks can reduce cell yield, complicate downstream processing, and hinder scale-up.

Smart MCs’ Solution: The X1 Microcarrier Platform

To address these issues, Smart MCs developed X1 microcarriers fully customisable, and dissolvable alternative.

Key Features of X1 Microcarriers:

By enabling researchers and manufacturers to tailor the microenvironment, the X1 platform leads to more efficient growth, simplified harvesting, and better downstream compatibility.

Results from the Study

The peer-reviewed study tested X1 microcarriers across five cell lines representing three major industrial applications: cultivated meat, stem cell therapy, and vaccine/viral vector production. A widely used commercial microcarrier was included for comparison under matched conditions.