The group of Koichi HASEGAWA at the Institute for Advanced Materials – Cellular Integration System (iCeMS) at Kyoto University describe in their paper Chemically defined and growth-factor-free culture system for the expansion and derivation of human pluripotent stem cells”, to appear in Nature Biomedical Engineering, how expensive growth factors produced by recombinant E. coli can be substituted by defined chemicals such as 1-azakenpaullone, thus reducing the medium price from 70,000 Yen/L culture medium to less than about 5,000 Yen.”

AMED news release, March 9, 2018