Regenerative Medicine to Benefit from Automated Cell Culture Platform

A publication in the rapidly expanding field of regenerative medicine described the development of an automated liquid-handling cell-culture platform for isolating, expanding, and characterizing human primary cells. The new system will facilitate the production of cells and cell-based products that contribute to the regeneration or repair of damaged and degenerated tissues and organs.

The heart of the automated system is the Roche (Basel, Switzerland) high-throughput Cellavista Imaging System for noninvasive measurement of cell expansion and fluorescence measurement of cell quality.


The Cellavista Imaging System was combined with a liquid-handling robot produced by Tecan (Männedorf, Switzerland). Together these instruments are able to automatically load and unload the centrifuge module, operate a programmable homogenizer, and monitor clean air hood ventilation for purity level four requirements (VDI 2083) and class 1000 (US Federal Standard 209). The Cellavista Imaging component measures cell expansion using bright field and fluorescence detection with multiwell plates, chamber slides, or RoboFlasks.

The platform was tested by investigators at Zurich University of Applied Sciences (Switzerland) who demonstrated that the automated liquid-handling cell-culture platform could be used effectively to isolate, expand, and characterize human primary cells (e.g., from intervertebral disc tissue) with results that were comparable to the manual procedure. Specifically, no differences could be observed for cell yield, viability, aggregation rate, growth rate, and phenotype. All steps-from the enzymatic isolation of cells through biopsy to final quality control were performed completely by the automated system, which was possible due to the novel tools that were incorporated into the platform. These findings were published in the June 2011 issue of the Journal of the Association of Laboratory Automation.

The authors predicted that this type of automated cell handling system would make a great contribution to regenerative medicine, since, “Only automated systems can provide safe, reproducible, effective, and affordable cell-based products that are able to meet legislative needs, such as good manufacturing practice (GMP) requirements.”

Related Links:
Roche
Tecan
Zurich University of Applied Sciences