Nucleus Biologics unveils Krakatoa for eco-friendly cell culture media

By The Science Advisory Board staff writers

March 1, 2022 -- Nucleus Biologics has launched the Krakatoa, an innovative, first-to-market media maker that will allow researchers to manufacture cell culture media at the point of use. Moving media manufacturing to the benchtop addresses sustainability and improves media quality, convenience, and scalability, according to the firm.

Krakatoa Media Maker. Image courtesy of Nucleus Biologics.

Large volumes of single-use plastics are incinerated as biohazardous waste or wind up in landfills because of common and repeated use in laboratory settings. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles with media are a significant portion of that waste. Furthermore, there is a very large environmental impact to shipping solubilized media globally, driven primarily by the weight of water.

Krakatoa is revolutionizing the way cell culture media is delivered to laboratories. The media maker utilizes biodegradable media pods to solubilize 500 microliter quantities of sterile media at the point of use. Some of the key appeals of Krakatoa include:

Reducing total greenhouse gas emissions by 65% per 500 mL of media produced compared to conventional media
Providing users with media solubilized at the point of use avoiding degradation of critical components that may impact quality of the media
Reducing the time to delivery of custom media and lowers the total delivered cost as media is shipped in lightweight, handheld pods instead of bottles or containers. - Scaling from bench to bioreactor, allowing users to easily test, optimize, and reorder their media to streamline process development

Krakatoa is the first in a family of products by Stoic Bio, a spinoff of Nucleus Biologics, and will be distributed exclusively by Nucleus Biologics. Both companies will work collaboratively to deliver innovative and sustainable solutions to the cell culture industry.

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