| Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) have tremendous potential in regenerative medicine. However, many challenges must be overcome before hESCs can be used in clinical settings. The long-term goal of this project was to develop an array of magnetically-stirred microbioreactors as a high-throughput screening tool for optimizing hESC growth conditions. Microbioreactors would allow many experiments to be run in parallel, resulting in a more economical process design. Preliminary design and characterization of a microbioreactor system was completed. The effects of working volume, agitation rate, magnetic field, mass transfer and fluid environment for murine embryonic stem cell (mESC) culture were examined both theoretically and experimentally. Finally, mESCs were successfully cultured in the microbioreactors as a proof of concept, although culture characteristics did not match that seen in standard 100 mL bioreactors. These results have lead to the design of a prototype microbioreactor to provide a better model of standard 100 mL bioreactors. |
