Dry powder cells and cell culture reagents and methods of production thereof

Abstract

The present invention relates generally to nutritive medium, medium supplement, media subgroup and buffer formulations. Specifically, the present invention provides powder nutritive medium, medium supplement and medium subgroup formulations, particularly cell culture medium supplements (including powdered sera such as powdered fetal bovine serum (FBS)), medium subgroup formulations and cell culture media comprising all of the necessary nutritive factors that facilitate the in vitro cultivation of cells. The invention further provides powder buffer formulations that produce particular ionic and pH conditions upon reconstitution with a solvent. The invention is particularly directed to methods of production of these media, media supplement, media subgroup and buffer formulations, and also provides kits and methods for cultivation of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, particularly bacterial cells, yeast cells, plant cells and animal cells (including human cells) using these dry powder nutritive media, media supplement, media subgroup and buffer formulations. The invention also relates to methods of producing sterile powdered media, media supplement (particularly powdered sera such as powdered FBS, powdered transferrin, powdered insulin, powdered organ extracts (such as bovine brain or pituitary extracts), powdered growth factors (such as EGF, FGF, etc.) and the like), media subgroup and buffer formulations. In a particularly preferred aspect, the invention relates to such methods wherein the sterilization is accomplished by gamma irradiation. The invention also relates to methods for producing dry cell powders, comprising spray-drying a cell suspension. The invention also relates to cell, media, media supplement, media subgroup and buffer powders produced by these methods.