One Wheel. The Same Environment at Every Scale.
A single, large, vertically-oriented wheel replaces the high-shear impeller. It creates gentle, homogeneous mixing that keeps cells and microcarriers uniformly suspended from 0.1 L to 80 L.
Buoyancy Does the Mixing, Not Speed.
The wheel turns slowly through the vessel, combining radial and axial flow into one smooth circulation pattern.
A single vertically-oriented wheel spans the vessel and turns at low rpm, so no part of the fluid is whipped by a high-speed blade.
The wheel geometry folds both flow directions into one smooth circulation loop that reaches the whole working volume.
Lift, not turbulence, holds cells and microcarriers in suspension, which is why shear and energy dissipation stay low.
A Paradigm Shift from Stir-Tank.
Stir-tanks were designed for microbial and CHO culture, where cells tolerate turbulence. Cell therapies do not.
The Environment Your Cells Actually Experience.
Fluidix™ is the engineered growth environment the wheel creates: how forces, nutrients, gas and motion reach every cell. The wheel is the mechanism, the vessel is the home, Fluidix™ is what your process is actually tuned against.
Nutrients, gas and media exchange reach every cell without the turbulent forces that damage sensitive cells.
The conditions hold as you scale, so a process tuned small transfers up predictably and stays calculable.
Govern aggregate size, viability and phenotype through the environment rather than mechanical force.
A form factor can be copied. The characterized environment your process is validated in cannot.
Gentle. Homogeneous. Linearly Scalable.
Low-shear, low-EDR hydrodynamics protect fragile cells, preserving viability and phenotype through expansion.
One sweeping wheel suspends cells and microcarriers uniformly, with no dead zones and no settling.
The same mixing regime from 0.1 L to 80 L, so a process tuned small transfers up predictably.
The Same Wheel in Every System.
Every Vertical-Wheel® system runs the same geometry inside a pre-sterilized single-use vessel, from a 0.1 L benchtop vessel to an 80 L commercial run. That is what makes a process tuned at the bench transfer up predictably.
Characterized, Not Just Claimed.
The Vertical-Wheel® environment is documented in peer-reviewed CFD, oxygen-transfer and shear/EDR studies.
This protocol provides step-by-step guidance for transitioning pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) from 2D adherent culture to scalable 3D aggregate culture using the PBS-Mini Vertical-Wheel® bioreactor. It covers seed train preparation, inoculation, aggregate formation, expansion, media exchange, sampling, morphology assessment, cell counting, viability analysis, and harvest. Workflows are provided for both PBS-Mini 0.1 and 0.5 vessels, including aggregate dissociation in conical tubes or directly within the bioreactor. The protocol offers a practical starting point for developing, optimizing, and scaling robust PSC aggregate processes on the PBS Vertical-Wheel platform.
This application note demonstrates expansion of CAR-NK cells in PBS Vertical-Wheel® Bioreactors integrated with the Repligen XCell® ATF 2 perfusion system. Human NK cells were activated, CAR-transduced, and expanded using batch, fed-batch, and perfusion strategies, with performance evaluated across growth, nutrient utilization, metabolites, cell health, CAR expression, and potency. Fed-batch improved expansion over batch culture, while perfusion further increased yield. A responsive perfusion strategy based on cell density and glucose consumption delivered the highest expansion with efficient media utilization while maintaining cell health, supporting PBS Vertical-Wheel bioreactors as a scalable platform for CAR-NK manufacturing.
PBS Biotech Starter Packs provide a streamlined way to begin process development on the Vertical-Wheel® platform. Available in Basic, Enhanced, and Premium configurations, the packages combine PBS-Mini bioreactor systems, single-use vessels, and tiered scientific support to match different development needs. Options include 0.1 L and 0.5 L working volumes, with Enhanced and Premium packages adding onsite support. The flyer summarizes package contents, pricing, and support options, helping teams quickly establish a scalable development pathway using PBS-Mini and the same Vertical-Wheel technology designed to support progression toward larger-scale manufacturing.
This study combines CFD simulations with hPSC suspension culture experiments to investigate scale-up in Vertical-Wheel® bioreactors. The authors compare conventional Eulerian metrics, including volume-averaged shear stress and energy dissipation rate (EDR), with Lagrangian analysis of aggregate trajectories. Aggregate size, agitation rate, and bioreactor scale were shown to influence hydrodynamic exposure, while EDR correlated more strongly with aggregation efficiency, aggregate size, and cell expansion than shear stress. The findings highlight the value of tracking aggregate exposure histories to guide more representative scale-up and agitation strategies for hPSC manufacturing in Vertical-Wheel bioreactors.
The Wheel Ships Inside the Vessel.
The geometry is delivered inside a pre-sterilized, single-use vessel, so the technology reaches your cells the same closed way every run. Nothing to clean or re-validate between batches.
See What Gentle Mixing Can Do for Your Cells.
Talk to an application scientist about applying Vertical-Wheel® technology to your process.