A Computer-Controlled Microgravity Bioreactor
Barksdale, Masais; Sridharan, Arati; Jaczynski, Andrew; Shaerzadeh, Amirhossein; Labelle, Jeffrey; and Pizziconi, Vincent
Harrington Department of Engineering, Arizona State University
Microgravity bioreactors are designed to emulate environments in which living cells are allowed to grow under reduced gravitational influence. One of the key design issues in commercial bioreactors is the lack of real time control of the continuously changing tissue mass. In order to maintain a microgravity environment, the continuously growing 3-D tissue mass must be held at a fixed position to minimize the effects of unit gravitational influence on living cells throughout the culture period. The approach taken herein to achieve this desired performance is to re-design the microgravity bioreactor with a computer-controlled, real-time feedback control system. The main components of the bioreactor feedback control system are a light source, a photo detector, a data acquisition interface board, and a custom-designed, software control algorithm that, in operation, will be capable of tracking the cell mass location in real time and, when necessary, automatically adjusts system parameters to maintain the cell mass at the optimal location. The current focus is on design and development of the control system that, after assembly, will undergo in vitro prototype verification tests during the spring semester. The initial prototype verification tests will include non-living, particle masses of different sizes that will be used to verify the basic design features and the feedback control system. Final prototype tests will involve the verification of the real time, microgravity control of living cells. Once achieved, it will then be possible to determine the affects of a continuous microgravity environment on diverse living cell systems in culture.