Growth Factors
made for stem cells
Qkine manufactures high-purity, animal-free growth factors, cytokines and other complex proteins.
Based in Cambridge, UK, we combine proprietary protein production processes with protein engineering techniques to develop unique growth factors. These proteins tackle fundamental biological and scale-up challenges for the fast-growing stem cell, organoid, regenerative medicine and cellular agriculture sectors.
Qkine has an active R&D pipeline, with a continually expanding product range. Unique products available from Qkine include tag-free thermostable FGF-2 (FGF2-G3), the first animal-free TGF-β1 for chemically defined stem cell media, and animal-free HGF (NK1).
Qkine is an ISO 9001: 2015 certified company.
Key Scientific Area
Growth factors for defined organoid culture media
Organoids are 3D assemblies of cells, containing multiple cell types, arranged in a similar structure to the modelled tissue, but on a micro-scale. Organoids represent a more physiologically relevant model of tissues than 2D and mono-culture systems. As organoids recapitulate tissue-specific features, they are used in the study of tissue development and maintenance, stem cell characteristics, cellular interactions, precision medicine, disease modelling and drug discovery. Due to long periods in culture, it is important that all growth factors for organoid culture give highly consistent biological activity. Where possible, consider replacing conditioned media with recombinant proteins such as noggin, EGF, FGF and more to improve reproducibility and scale-up.