Poster prize on development of large-scale culture of red blood cells

The collaboration of the TU Delft and Sanquin on the development of a bioreactor to culture red cells for transfusion resulted in a poster prize for Ainhoa Uribarren Marcaide at the Dutch Biotechnology Congress.

At Sanquin Research we aim to culture red blood cells for transfusion purposes. One transfusion unit contains 2 x 10¹² red blood cells. To grow such large numbers of cells we need to develop bioreactors. For this the department Hematopoiesis at Sanquin started a collaboration with the department of Biotechnology at the TU Delft. Ainhoa is a master student at the TU Delft. Together with her supervisor Maria Cuellar Soares she developed a theoretical model to predict the proliferation of erythroid progenitors in a stirred bioreactor. She calculated how the rotation speed of the impellar, or the sparging of gas would affect progenitor proliferation.  Then she came to Sanquin to test her model. Together with Joan Gallego Murillo, PhD student at Sanquin, she started a 1 litre culture in a small bioreactor. The results confirmed her theoretical model.