Bioreactors for Hematopoietic Cell Culture

Hematopoietic cell culture, or ex vivo expansion of hematopoietic cells, is an enabling technology with many potential applications in bone-marrow transplantation, immunotherapy, gene therapy, and the production of blood products. Hematopoietic cultures are complex, with many different cell types of different stages of development present at any given point in time and never in steady state. Moreover, these cells interact strongly with each other and the environment through cytokines (growth factors) and adhesion molecules, as well as through their metabolism. Despite these significant challenges, cell products produced in bioreactors have shown promise in recent phase 1 clinical trials.