Report of the international conference on manufacturing and testing of pluripotent stem cells

Sessions included an overview of past cell therapy (CT) conferences sponsored by the International Alliance for Biological Standardization (IABS). The sessions highlighted challenges in the field of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) and also addressed specific points on manufacturing, bioanalytics and comparability, tumorigenicity testing, storage, and shipping. Panel discussions complemented the presentations. The conference concluded that a range of new standardization groups is emerging that could help the field, but ways must be found to ensure that these efforts are coordinated. In addition, there are opportunities for regulatory convergence starting with a gap analysis of existing guidelines to determine what might be missing and what issues might be creating divergence. More specific global regulatory guidance, preferably from WHO, would be welcome. IABS and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) will explore with stakeholders the development of a practical and innovative road map to support early CT product (CTP) developers.

Instrument for determining the complex shear modulus of soft-tissue-like materials from 10 to 300 Hz

Accurate determination of the complex shear modulus of soft tissues and soft-tissue-like materials in the 10-300 Hz frequency range is very important to researchers in MR elastography and acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) imaging. A variety of instruments for making such measurements has been reported, but none of them is easily reproduced, and none have been tested to conform to causality via the Kramers-Kronig (K-K) relations. A promising linear oscillation instrument described in a previous brief report operates between 20 and 160 Hz, but results were not tested for conformity to the K-K relations. We have produced a similar instrument with our own version of the electronic components and have also accounted for instrumental effects on the data reduction, which is not addressed in the previous report. The improved instrument has been shown to conform to an accurate approximation of the K-K relations over the 10-300 Hz range. The K-K approximation is based on the Weichert mechanical circuit model. We also found that the sample thickness must be small enough to obtain agreement with a calibrated commercial rheometer. A complete description of the improved instrument is given, facilitating replication in other labs.

Non-brownian microrheology of a fluid-gel interface

We use stroboscopic video microscopy to study the motion of a sheared fluid-gel interface. Mechanical noise plays a role analogous to temperature, but with a low-frequency breakdown of linear response consistent with an underlying instability. We relate the fast motion of the interface to the rheological properties of the gel, laying the foundation for a non-Brownian optical microrheology.

Shear-induced structure in polymer-clay nanocomposite solutions

The equilibrium structure and shear response of model polymer-clay nanocomposite gels are measured using X-ray scattering, light scattering, optical microscopy, and rheometry. The suspensions form physical gels via the "bridging" of neighboring colloidal clay platelets by the polymer, with reversible adsorption of polymer segments onto the clay surface providing a short-range attractive force. As the flow disrupts this transient network, coupling between composition and stress leads to the formation of a macroscopic domain pattern, while the clay platelets orient with their surface normal parallel to the direction of vorticity. We discuss the shear-induced structure, steady-shear rheology, and oscillatory-shear response of these dynamic networks, and we offer a physical explanation for the mesoscale shear response. In contrast to flow-induced "banding" transitions, no stress plateau is observed in the region where macroscopic phase separation occurs. The observed platelet orientation is different from that reported for polymer-melt clay nanocomposites, which we attribute to effects associated with macroscopic phase separation under shear flow.

Protein and solvent dynamics: How strongly are they coupled?

Analysis of Raman and neutron scattering spectra of lysozyme demonstrates that the protein dynamics follow the dynamics of the solvents glycerol and trehalose over the entire temperature range measured 100-350 K. The protein's fast conformational fluctuations and low-frequency vibrations and their temperature variations are very sensitive to behavior of the solvents. Our results give insight into previous counterintuitive observations that protein relaxation is stronger in solid trehalose than in liquid glycerol. They also provide insight into the effectiveness of glycerol as a biological cryopreservant.

Ubiquity of domain patterns in sheared viscoelastic fluids

A ubiquitous domain pattern is observed in two-phase viscoelastic fluids falling within the simple paradigm of soft viscoelastic domains suspended in a less viscoelastic fluid under shear flow. Three strikingly different complex fluids exhibit the same shear-induced domain structure, which we relate to the elasticity of the dispersed phase via an approximate Weissenberg number. We suggest a physical mechanism for the formation of this pervasive pattern, independent of the dynamic origin of the elasticity of the suspended phase.

Elastic flow instability in nanotube suspensions

We report an elastic instability associated with flow-induced clustering in semidilute non-Brownian colloidal nanotubes. Rheo-optical measurements are compared with simulations of mechanical flocculation in sheared fiber suspensions, and the evolving structure is characterized as a function of confinement and shear stress. The transient rheology is correlated with the evolution of highly elastic vorticity-aligned aggregates, with the underlying instability being somewhat ubiquitous in complex fluids.