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MHH doctoral student receives research grant to develop more sustainable methods for cultivating stem cells.
Research is essential for progress in medicine – but unfortunately, it also generates a lot of waste. Every year, laboratories around the world produce around 5.5 million tonnes of plastic waste. That is 2 per cent of the global amount of plastic waste – even though researchers make up less than 0.2 per cent of the world's population. Carlos Hernandez Bautista, a doctoral student in the Regenerative Sciences PhD programme at Hannover Medical School (MHH), wants to change that. As a member of the working group led by Dr Robert Zweigerdt at the Leibniz Research Laboratories for Biotechnology and Artificial Organs (LEBAO) at the Clinic for Cardiac, Thoracic, Transplant and Vascular Surgery, he wants to develop new, efficient bioprocesses for the mass production of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) in reusable glass stirred tank bioreactors. hPSCs are body cells that have been reprogrammed to their original state and can now develop into almost any type of cell. In his project ‘Development of sustainable biomedicine for heart regeneration’, hPSCs serve as the starting material for the production of cell therapy products such as heart muscle cells for the treatment of heart failure. The Joachim Herz Foundation has selected the young scientist and his project ‘Development of sustainable biomedicine for heart regeneration’ for the ‘Add-on Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Life Science’ and is supporting him with a grant of 15,000 euros.
Glass bioreactors
Cell culture laboratories are among the biggest contributors to plastic waste in research, especially those that use conventional, so-called 2D methods. This technology, which has been used in the life sciences for decades, refers to the two-dimensional growth of cells, for example in culture dishes or on the surface of plastic bottles. Carlos Hernandez Bautista is striving for low-plastic 3D workflows that meet the high demands of cutting-edge research without harming the environment. ‘I want to use reusable glass bioreactors and introduce the hPSCs produced and cryopreserved in our laboratory directly into the liquid culture medium. This will completely replace the large quantities of plastic cell culture bottles required for 2D methods,’ explains the doctoral student. One of the most important challenges is to prevent the cells from being damaged or dying after thawing when they are transferred directly into 3D workflows. The biologist aims to solve this problem by adding various survival-promoting additives to the nutrient solution. The process is to be used both for the mass cultivation of stem cells and for their further development into different cell types. In his project, the hPSCs are converted into heart muscle cells. These biotechnologically produced cardiomyocytes are needed in biomedicine to develop new cell therapies for the treatment of heart failure.
Less consumption of culture media
While hPSCs have immense potential for regenerative medicine, the established 2D culture systems for mass production of these cells are plastic-intensive, uneconomical and poorly scalable – meaning they cannot be effectively transferred from small laboratory scale to industrial production volumes without compromising quality or yield. ‘This unsustainable approach contradicts the urgent need for more environmentally friendly laboratory methods,’ emphasises PD Dr Zweigerdt. This includes not only the use of plastic, but also the need for culture media. ‘To address this problem, we have developed a groundbreaking strategy for 3D suspension culture that not only gives us a tenfold increase in hPSC yield, but also reduces the need for culture medium by 75 per cent,’ says the research group leader.
Healthcare system also benefits
The project is highly interdisciplinary, integrating areas such as stem cell biology, cardiac regeneration, biotechnology, regenerative medicine, bioinformatics and environmental sciences to advance the clinical application of hPSCs and the cell products derived from them. ‘The research grant gives me the opportunity to work with experts worldwide to develop a production process for regenerative cell therapies that meets high scientific standards,’ explains Hernandez Bautista. In addition, the researchers at LEBAO want to use more environmentally friendly laboratory methods. The long-term goal is to obtain certification from the US non-profit organisation ‘My Green Lab’, which supports sustainable practices in research laboratories. However, it is not only the environment that benefits from new production methods. The development of efficient, purely 3D-based workflows is intended to make new medical approaches affordable for patients and the healthcare system.
Add-on Fellowship
The Joachim Herz Foundation supports up to 80 researchers from the fields of engineering, economics and life sciences each year with financial and non-material resources. Doctoral student Carlos Hernandez Bautista was selected from more than 500 applicants for the prestigious Add-on Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Life Science. The scholarship enables him to deepen his knowledge in the field of sustainability and to apply more environmentally friendly methods in the laboratory. The funding is aimed at excellent researchers in the early stages of their careers who are working on interdisciplinary research topics of social significance in the field of ‘Resources of the Future’. The research fellowship includes individual support and an opportunity to network with other fellows over a period of two years and three months.
SERVICE
Further information is available from Dr Robert Zweigerdt, zweigerdt.robert@mh-hannover.de, or from Carlos Hernandez Bautista, HernandezBautista.Carlos@mh-hannover.de.
Declaring war on plastic waste in the laboratory: doctoral student Carlos Hernandez Bautista.
Copyright: Karin Kaiser/MHH.
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