Corning launches the Elplasia 12K flask, for drug screening and other applications
Newest 3D cell culture solution from Corning enables production of ~12,000 spheroids of uniform size and geometry
12 Feb 2024
Corning Incorporated has launched an addition to its 3D cell culture portfolio that provides a new solution to support spheroid culture, commonly used in advanced therapy development and cancer research. The Corning® Elplasia® 12K flask features a unique microcavity geometry that enables easy spheroid formation, culture, treatment, assessment, and harvest, with approximately 12,000 spheroids of uniform size and shape per flask, generating 125 times more yield than conventional 96-well spheroid plates. Conventional spheroid production methods have limitations for bulk 3D culture, including lack of reproducibility, wide distribution of spheroid sizes, and limited quantities achievable.
Critical in drug screening and other applications such as cell therapy research, spheroids are coveted for their ability to more closely resemble the original tumor from which they were derived. The Corning Elplasia 12K flask is designed in a convenient format and is compatible with many tumor, normal, and primary cell types often used in 3D cell culture.
Corning’s Elplasia 12K flask is a plug-and-play solution that is ready-to-use, sterile, and requires no specialty reagents to support the bulk production of spheroids, all in a footprint similar to that of a T-75 flask. It features Corning’s Ultra Low Attachment (ULA) surface, an optically clear flask bottom for easy spheroid visualization and gas permeable polystyrene film microcavity substrate to support long-term 3D cell culture.
Demand for spheroids continues to increase as research and technology in drug screening, cancer research, and advanced therapies rapidly evolves. The Corning Elplasia12K flask will be vital to advancing the effectiveness of 3D spheroids in many areas of research, and to meeting the need for better methods of producing and replicating spheroids of uniform size in mass quantities.
