Award details

Engineering to improve the efficiency of adult stem cell culture

Reference	BBS/E/S/00000493
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Mr John Reed
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Silsoe Research Institute
Department	Silsoe Research Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	22,300
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2004
End date	31/03/2005
Duration	12 months

Abstract

Stromal adult stem cells from bone marrow have the capacity to generate bone, fat, cartilage and fibrous connective tissue. Adult stem cells are difficult to grow efficiently and this is inhibiting the rate of research and their use in therapy. In conjunction with stem cell scientists this project will study the current laboratory stem cell culturing technique from an engineering perspective. The aim is to identify and begin to evaluate automation ideas or new techniques that could enable stem cells to be grown more effectively. Project objectives are: a) To assess and prioritise the science and engineering needed to automate or semi-automate stem cell laboratory culturing techniques. b) To appraise the current state and relevance of commercial cell culturing systems. c) To conceive and practically evaluate initial engineering techniques that could reduce the variable performance of the current stem cell culture method. Approaches will include (i) recording the overall time, growth rate, cell numbers and cell culture area for each stage of the process and video analysis of the passage techniques, (ii) identifying current process time and quality constraints and conceiving potential engineering approaches e.g. continuous nutrient flow, environment sensing, container design, that might improve the process consistency, and (iii) use of CAD, dynamic analysis, cell growth modelling and experimental methods to visualise and quantify the performance of proposed techniques.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Engineering & Biological Systems (EBS)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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