Cell culturing system and method

Abstract

A cell culturing system (100) comprises a docking station (104, 105), a handling unit (102), a culturing module (101) and an actuation layer. The culturing module has a culturing well and a culturingmembrane separating the culturing well in an apical culturing chamber and a basal culturing chamber. The handling unit has a seat for removably accommodating the culturing module and the actuation layer and a bottom with an actuation bore, wherein, when the culturing module is arranged in the seat, the actuation bore is associated to the culturing well and the bottom is separated from the culturing module by the actuation layer. The docking station has a coupling structure for removably holding the handling unit in a predefined position and an actuation feeding channel, wherein, when the handling unit is held by the coupling structure in the predefined position, a first end of the actuation feeding channel is connected to the actuation bore and a second end of the actuation feeding channelis connected to a connector.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates to a cell culture system for culturing cells on a culture membrane. Such systems can be used to mechanically stimulate, perfuse and / or interconnect in vivo-like tissues. The system can be used as a tissue array simulating a single organ or a multi-organ system connecting different tissues to each other or a combination thereof. Background technique [0002] Advanced in vitro models of human tissues that reproduce the dynamic environment found in vivo and / or the interactions between different tissues are often complex systems that complicate their construction and handling and are not comparable to automated pipetting robots widely used in the pharmaceutical industry incompatible. Several approaches aimed at providing perfusion cell culture systems have been proposed over the past decade, most of which rely on integrated peristaltic pumps or systems based on pressurized cell culture medium reservoirs. [0003] For exampl...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

The main disadvantage of this system is the inability to access the cells during perfusion due to the coverslip tightly attached to the well plate

In addition, the system is not easily manipulated due to the coverslip connected with multiple fluidic tubes

[0006] However, even though the mentioned systems are modular and can be used in automatic or semi-automatic processes, they do not allow to simulate real situations in which cells or cell-carrying matrices are stressed e.g. due to mechanical forces such as compression and tension.

Images