Snow Brand Milk Products Co., Ltd.

Japan Vilene Company, Ltd.

Snow Brand Milk Products, Ltd.

Yoshiaki Matsuda

Shinjiro Mitsuda

Eitaro Kumazawa

Fuminori Kimura

Atushi Baba

Naoki Kobayashi

Hideo Sakuma

Masakatsu Uesaka

A carrier for adhering animal cells during culturing or for immobilization of animal cells is produced by coating a porous substrate with a cell adhesive material in the form of a mixture with chitosan. In a preferred embodiment, the porous substrate is a nonwoven fabric prepared by impregnating a nonwoven fabric web with a binder resin, and the mixture contains silk fibroin, gelatin and chitosan. Coating is carried out by contacting the nonwoven fabric with a solution prepared by adding silk fibroin and gelatin to an acidic aqueous solution of chitosan to coat the nonwoven fabric, drying the coated nonwoven fabric and treating the dried nonwoven fabric with an alkali to render the chitosan insoluble.

Nonwoven fabric coated with a mixture of silk fibroin, gelatin and

A process and system for cultivating adhesive cells in a packed bed of solid cell matrix is disclosed. Adhesive cells are adhered to a solid cell matrix, preferably ceramic particles, and packed in a cell culture tank to form the packed bed. The culture medium is circulated through the packed bed in a direction. The circulating of the culture medium is then stopped and the direction of the medium being circulated is reversed. This periodic switching of the direction of the culture medium reduces channelling of the culture medium. The bottom or head of the culture tank can also contain a separator to trap any bubble existing in the culture medium or to trap any quantity of cell matrix possibly running out from the culture tank.

Process for cultivating adhesive cells in a packed bed of solid cell

Cell cultivation is carried out by proliferating cells in a small preliminary culture tank containing immobilizing carriers, stripping proliferated cells from the carriers, forming a cell suspension of the stripped cells in culture medium in an intermediate reservoir, intermittently transferring the suspension into a main culture tank containing ceramic immobilizing carriers and further culturing the cells. The main culture tank has an inversed funnel-shaped inlet above the carriers with a perforated plate attached to the bottom of the inlet for uniform distribution of cell suspension from above the carriers, and a plate in the form of a net under the carriers on a perforated plate for uniform distribution of cell suspension from beneath the carriers. The main tank additionally has a lid detachably carrying the inversed funnel-shaped inlet an intermediate drum-shaped portion from which the lid is detachable and a lower portion detachably carrying the plate in the form of a net and being detachable from the drum-shaped portion. The lower portion is held on or separated from the drum-shaped portion by means of a link mechanism and a cylinder capable of lowering the lower portion to separate it from the drum-shaped portion.

Method and apparatus for cell culture with immobilizing carriers

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Sashima, Japan

Yoshiaki Matsuda