Wilson Wolf Manufacturing

Wilson Wolf invents and manufactures cell culture technology that combines gas permeable device walls with unique geometry to create optimal gas transfer and maximum nutrient availability.  The basic version of this technology is referred to as GP Cultureware, where GP stands for "Gas Permeable."  With GP Cultureware, cells reside on a highly gas permeable membrane and obtain oxygen from the ambient environment.  Medium resides at a height beyond that of conventional wisdom and minimizes feeding frequency.  This proprietary combination of attributes maximizes the number of cells in each device, reduces feeding frequency, and saves inventory, incubator, and disposal space.

Our CELLine™  Flask technology provides further benefits by integrating the use of both gas permeable and semi-permeable membranes to compartmentalize devices, allowing high density cell culture in a format as easy to use as a traditional flask.  Cells reside in an optimal position on the gas permeable membrane for gas transfer, while a 10,000 molecular weight cutoff dialysis membrane separates cells, secreted products, and exogenous growth factors from a large medium reservoir.  This proprietary combination of attributes maximizes the number of cells in each device, reduces feeding frequency, can increase cell and secreted product density by 100 fold, and can reduce serum use by 50 fold in serum based applications.

Wilson Wolf's GP Cultureware and CELLine™ Flasks provide a far superior alternative to flasks, bags, spinners, and small scale hollow fiber devices.  Contact us to see how they can be useful in your application.

To fully appreciate the design of the Wilson Wolf cultureware, it is useful to consider the design limits of traditional culture devices.

Traditional flasks require gas to move through the medium to reach the cells.  This limits medium height to only 2-3 mm.  The small amount of medium per flask requires frequent exchange.  In use, only 5% of the flask is medium, the other 95% is merely air.  This causes a very inefficient use of storage, incubator, and disposal space.  In short, the flask requires excess labor and wastes space.

Gas permeable bags allow oxygen to reach cells without having to travel all the way through the medium to reach the cells.  Gas need not reside within the bag.  Thus, it addresses the wasted air space of the flask.  However, as the culture increases in size, the bags scales in the horizontal direction.  Thus, it is awkward to handle.  Also, since it originated as an intravenous feeding bag, it is not designed for cell introduction and removal.  Thus, it is much more difficult to use than a flask.

Flasks and bags do not allow high density culture.  More complex devices like MiniPERM or hollow fiber bioreactors are used for that.  These devices require expensive special equipment and a high level of skill to use them.

The Wilson Wolf cell culture devices overcome all of the limitations described above.