TY - JOUR N2 - Recent advances of stem cell-based therapies in clinical trials have raised the need for large-scale manufacturing platforms that can supply clinically relevant doses to meet an increasing demand. Promising results have been reported using stirred-tank bioreactors, where human Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (hMSCs) were cultured in suspension on microcarriers (MCs), although the formation of microcarrier-cell-aggregates might still limit mass transfer and determine a heterogeneous distribution of hMSCs. A variety of MCs, bioreactor-impeller configurations, and agitation conditions have been established in an attempt to overcome the trade-off of ensuring good suspension while keeping the stresses to a minimum. While understanding and controlling the fluid flow environment of bioreactors has been initially under-appreciated, it has recently gained in popularity in the mission of providing ideal culture environments across different scales. This review article aims to provide a comprehensive overview of how rigorous engineering characterisation studies improved the outcome of biological process development and scale-up efforts. Reconciling these two disciplines is crucial to propose tailored bioprocessing solutions that can provide improved growth environments across a range of scales for the allogeneic cell therapies of the future. AV - public VL - 47 KW - Mesenchymal stromal cell bioprocessing KW - Impeller design KW - Stirred-tank bioreactors KW - Cell therapy process development TI - Advances in human mesenchymal stromal cell-based therapies ? Towards an integrated biological and engineering approach N1 - © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) ID - discovery10106460 JF - Stem Cell Research Y1 - 2020/08// A1 - Wyrobnik, TA A1 - Ducci, A A1 - Micheletti, M UR - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scr.2020.101888 ER -