Copner Biotech

Traditionally, mammalian cells are grown in a 2-dimensional environment, such as petri dishes, but this is not without its setbacks, namely the forced polarity that cells undergo due to the nature of the culture environment.

Cells grown 3-dimensionally exhibit more physiologically relevant characteristics.

Copner Biotech's state of the art design and manufacturing process enables 3D cell culture scaffolds to be produced based on concentric shape constructs, such as circles, providing a consistent variability of pore size (heterogenous pore size and distribution) emanating from the centre to the periphery of scaffold.

The effect is to provide clear regions of the scaffold where cells will have more favourable nutrient and oxygen exchange (periphery)and areas not so (centre). Such constructs better represents physiological conditions in the body providing tangible experimental advantages for research in fields studying cell microenvironments.

The efficacy of an original scaffold design has been the subject of a collaboration project with Swansea University realising fantastic cell culture results. These scaffolds are now available through life sciences vendor 2BScientific.

Bioprinting is the 3D printing of biological materials, which may or may not be laden with mammalian cells. The predominant use of bioprinting is the production of tissue like structures for drug testing, with more and more large companies looking towards this technology as an alternative to animal testing.

Our scaffold technology allows our customers to establish reliable spheroids, with high batch-to-batch consistency; that can be conveniently harvested from the scaffold. Spheroids are a type of three-dimensional cell modeling that better simulate a live cell's environmental; specifically regarding the reactions between cells and between cells and the matrix.

In the long term, Copner Biotech will ultimately aim to establish a foothold in the bioprinting market. We will do this via innovative, industrial collaborations with like-minded companies already in this space, utilising our novel technology. We continue to work upon and develop our existing technologies, in the software and 3D printing hardware space, to create competitive products.

Currently in collaboration with Jellagen part funded with a SMART Cymru Innovation Award of £123,724.

Jellagen world leaders in Marine Biotechnologies developing an innovative BioINK based on Jellyfish Collagen Type 0 to be printed with the Next Generation 3D Bio Printer developed by Copner Biotech

Copner Biotech are working with researchers at Cardiff University School of Biosciences to validate our 3D PETG scaffolds when applied to novel forms of microscopy research.

This collaboration will further establish our 3D PETG scaffold capabilities to be at the forefront of 3D cell culture technology.