Without giving away too much detail, we are working with cardiomyocytes and are looking for a more efficient way to isolate on a larger scale. Currently we prep the tissue sample, plate cells and grown them in selection media. Bound cells are then transferred into culture media and expanded. The trouble is that this can be a very time consuming part of the process and we have had some challenges in consistency. Is there a process, kit, product, that you could recommend to improve our process, particularly time-investment when increasing scale?

Answer

It is not clear if the cardiomyocytes referred to in your question are from a primary source or derived from iPSCs. If it is derivation from iPSC, the process requires (A) expansion of the stem cell, (B) efficient differentiation into cell type of choice. This is indeed a challenge for generating large-scale production of cells. There are several culture systems for generation and expansion of pluripotent stem cells.

Use this link to learn more about PSC expansion.
http://www.lifetechnologies.com/us/en/home/life-science/stem-cell-research/induced-pluripotent-stem-cells/ipsc-selection-expansion.html

Newer methods for efficient differentiation of PSCs into cardiomyocytes are being reported. A recent study by researchers at Nottingham recently reported a new stem cell microenvironment that allows self-renewal of stem cells and their subsequent differentiation into cardiomyocytes. {Dixon et al. (2014) doi/10.1073/pnas.1319685111}