StemScale PSC Suspension Medium | Thermo Fisher Scientific

Product photo of Gibco StemScale PSC suspension medium

A new dimension to PSC culture

The Gibco StemScale PSC Suspension Medium enables robust, scalable expansion of human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) in suspension culture systems. Designed to overcome common challenges in PSC spheroid and aggregate culture, this medium supports consistent growth, high viability, and maintenance of pluripotency across multiple cell lines and formats.

Why use suspension culture for pluripotent stem cells?

Suspension culture offers a powerful alternative to traditional adherent systems for researchers and bioprocess developers.

Enables scalable, high-density PSC expansion beyond surface-area limitations
Reduces labor-intensive handling and vessel constraints
Supports workflows aligned with cell therapy manufacturing, drug screening, and translational research
Facilitates bioreactor-compatible PSC culture systems for process scale-up

Key benefits of Stemscale PSC suspension medium

Supports large-scale human pluripotent stem cell suspension culture in shake flasks and bioreactors
Maintains pluripotency in PSC spheroid and aggregate cultures
Enables high-density PSC expansion without microcarriers or feeder layers
Achieves 5–10x expansion per passage, outperforming many standard suspension systems
Enables consistent spheroid formation across multiple PSC lines
Simplifies workflows with streamlined feeding and passaging protocols

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Gibco PSC Media are manufactured according to cGMP for medical devices, ISO 13485

Simplify the transition from bench to clinical applications

Gibco CTS (Cell Therapy Systems) StemScale PSC Suspension Medium has a similar formulation to StemScale PSC Suspension Medium with specific modifications that follow regulatory guidance. The xeno-free formulation is intended for translational and clinical applications and enables comparable performance, including pluripotency, genomic stability, and cell yield.

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Customer stories

A robust, scalable solution for PSC expansion and downstream neural differentiation

Dr. Cláudia Miranda shares how StemScale PSC Suspension Medium is enabling her research as a scalable solution for high-fold expansion of human pluripotent stem cells and downstream neural differentiation from PSC spheroids in suspension culture.

“StemScale is robust and allows us to replicate the results despite the cell line that we use.”

Generating cardiac organoids from PSC spheroids

Rebecca Sereda talks about her cardiomyocyte research at Harvard University and using StemScale PSC Suspension Medium to create human PSC cardiac organoids at high efficiency in a 3D model system.

“StemScale has provided us a simple and easy way to produce the cells we need to do the science we want.”

Superior expansion capability

Gibco StemScale PSC Suspension Medium supports the growth of pluripotent stem cells in suspension through the self-assembly of spheroids and is excellent for applications where large numbers of high-quality PSCs are required.

StemScale medium enables 5- to 10-fold expansion per passage and 3x the expansion capability of other media (Figure 1).

Graphical representation of StemScale medium boosting iPSC expansion up to 3× vs competitor over time in culture

Figure 1. Scaling expansion using StemScale medium. After 30 passages and 20 weeks in culture, StemScale medium helps deliver greater than 10x cell expansion per passage (left plot). When compared against a medium from supplier medium “M”, StemScale medium generates up to 3x expansion across the same period (right plot).

Bar graph showing StemScale medium maintains higher iPSC viability and pluripotency vs suspension culture system

Figure 2. StemScale medium helps to maintain cell viability and pluripotency. StemScale medium enables superior cell viability after 3 passages as compared to another suspension culture system and maintains high pluripotency after 30 passages.

Generate more cells in less time

In comparison to adherent culture, growing PSCs as self-aggregating spheroids in suspension using StemScale Medium allows users to culture greater numbers of cells in a shorter amount of time (Table 1) while reducing the amounts of media and plasticware consumed.

Here we show differences in time and cell number between cells grown in adherent culture and suspension culture starting from a single well of a 6-well plate.

Table 1. Scale-up for suspension vs adherent culture systems.

	Suspension scale-up			Adherent scale-up
Total days in culture	Culture vessel format	Average cell yield*	Medium consumed	Culture vessel format	Average cell yield*	Medium consumed
3 days	6-well plate (single well)	1.5 × 10⁶ cells	6 mL	6-well plate (single well)	1.5 × 10⁶ cells	6 mL
7 days	6-well plate (full plate)	18 × 10⁶ cells	30 mL	100 mm dish	9 × 10⁶ cells	48 mL
11 days	100 mL bioreactor	150 × 10⁶ cells	200 mL	150 mm dish	22 × 10⁶ cells	72 mL
15 days	500 mL bioreactor	750 × 10⁶ cells	1,000 mL	Nunc TripleFlask Treated Cell Culture Flask	78 × 10⁶ cells	800 mL
19 days	3 L bioreactor	4.5 × 10⁹ cells	6,000 mL	2-layer Nunc Cell Factory System	300 × 10⁶ cells	1,200 mL
23 days	–	–	–	10-layer Nunc Cell Factory System	1.5 × 10⁹ cells	6,000 mL
27 days	–	–	–	30-layer Nunc Cell Factory System	4.5 × 10⁹ cells	18,000 mL
* Values are estimated from data based on 4 days of expansion per culture vessel format. Values for the 3 L bioreactor and 30-layer Thermo Scientific Nunc Cell Factory System have been extrapolated from the smaller bioreactor and Nunc Cell Factory System formats listed in the table.

Five-day progression of pluripotent stem cell spheroids in StemScale medium, showing uniform growth and viability

Figure 3. Pluripotent stem cells grown in StemScale medium. Pluripotent stem cells seeded in StemScale PSC Suspension medium maintain optimal spheroid size and viability over 5 days.

“StemScale medium improves upon the efficiency of stem cell aggregation formation.”

– S. Rieck, ViaCyte

Simplified workflow

Figure 4. Simplified workflow (schematic). Easily adopt adherent cultures to suspension cultures using StemScale medium. StemScale medium enables users to skip feeding days, if desired. After initiation of cultures in StemScale medium, Gibco Episomal iPSCs are fed periodically using a 50% medium exchange, every day or every other day.

Chart showing similar fold PSC expansion in StemScale medium with every day and every other day feeding.

Chart shows high percent pluripotency marker expression with flexible feeding in StemScale medium

Figure 5. Cultures fed every other day perform similarly to cultures fed daily in fold change (A) and pluripotency (B).

How-to videos: 3 steps to culturing PSCs in suspension

Watch instructional videos to learn how to culture human pluripotent stem cells in suspension using StemScale PSC Suspension Medium.

Step 1Initiation
Step 2Maintenance and feeding
Step 3Passaging

Step 1: Initiation of PSC spheroid cultures in StemScale medium

Step 2: Maintenance and feeding of PSC spheroids with 50% media change

Step 3: Passaging PSC spheroids in suspension culture

Step 1 : Initiation

Step 1: Initiation of PSC spheroid cultures in StemScale medium

Step 2 : Maintenance and feeding

Step 2: Maintenance and feeding of PSC spheroids with 50% media change

Step 3 : Passaging

Step 3: Passaging PSC spheroids in suspension culture

Expansion across multiple cell lines and vessel formats

Across four different PSC lines cultured in StemScale Medium, 6- to 11-fold expansion was achieved per passage and 18- to 28-fold expansion was achieved over 15 days.

Scale-up in suspension culture systems using StemScale PSC Suspension Medium vs. scale-up in adherent culture systems

Figure 6. Suspension vs adherent culture systems. Scale-up in suspension culture systems using StemScale PSC Suspension Medium vs. scale-up in adherent culture systems.

Neural and cardiac differentiation from PSC spheroids

Neural induction is initiated directly from PSC spheroids cultured in StemScale PSC Suspension Medium.

Figure 7. Neural induction of spheroids. Using the PSC Neural Induction Medium (Cat. No. A1647801), large numbers of maturing neural stem cells are initiated directly from PSC spheroids cultured in StemScale medium.

StemScale cultured spheroids are initiated into DA neuron differentiation workflow

Dopaminergic neurons are directly initated from PSC spheroids cultured in StemScale medium

Figure 8. Dopaminergic neurons are directly initiated from PSC spheroids cultured in StemScale medium. In just 25 days, using the PSC Dopaminergic Neuron (DA) Differentiation kit (Cat. No. A3147701) DA neurons differentiated in StemScale medium co-expressed the same amount of FOXA2/Otx2 in suspension culture when compared to a 35-day protocol in adherent culture (data not shown).

Cardiac organoids differentiated from PSC spheroids

Cardiomycytes differentiated in suspension from PSC spheroids grown in StemScale medium

Figure 9. Cardiomyocytes differentiated in suspension from PSC spheroids grown in StemScale medium. (A) Undifferentiated hPSC spheres growing in StemScale medium prior to cardiac induction. (B) Spheroids in rotation culture 12 days after start of cardiac induction. (C) Cardiac organoids stained for the cardiac markers Alpha Sarcomeric Actinin (green) and Cardiac Troponin T (red). Nuclei are counterstained with DAPI (blue).