What Is Animal Origin Free Medium?

To understand what Animal Origin Free Medium means, we first need to understand the different media types available for cell culture.

Based on the presence or absence of animal or human-derived components, cell culture media can be classified into:

• serum-contained medium,
• serum-free medium,
• xeno-free medium,
• and chemically defined medium.

A chemically defined medium is a cell culture medium where all ingredients are recombinant proteins and chemical compounds.

But Xcell Therapeutics goes one step further and sub-categorises their chemically defined medium into Animal Component Free (ACF) and Animal Origin Free (AOF) medium.

• Animal Component Free (ACF): Animal derivatives may come into contact during the manufacturing process, but are not included in the finished product
• Animal Origin Free (AOF): No contact with animal derivatives, from manufacturing to finished product. It represents the highest level of media manufacturing in compliance with regulations.

Why Chemically Defined Media?

• Market demand is rapidly increasing due to R&D activities utilising cells across various industries, including cell and gene therapy products (CGT).
• The demand for safe products is rising due to concerns over safety issues such as virus contamination and immunogenicity associated with the current use of fetal bovine serum (FBS).
• It is recommended to avoid the use of animal-derived reagents worldwide.
• Rigorous management and safety assessment data are required to evaluate the potential contamination risks by exogenous agents from biological raw materials.

---

Information provided by Xcell Therapeutics.

Caltag Medsystems distributes Xcell Therapeutics products in the UK and Ireland. If you have any questions about these products, please contact us.