Culture methods and devices for testing
AssigneeWilson Wolf Manufacturing
InventorsJohn R. Wilson, Daniel P. Welch
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Improved cell culture devices and related methods that overcome the limitations of prior devices and methods, by creating devices that can integrate a variety of novel attributes. These various attributes include the use of gas permeable material and medium volumes that exceed conventional devices as well as compartments that can facilitate the long term study of high density cultures with reduced disruption of the culture environment, the ability to study the migration of items of interest including substances such as chemokine, track the movement of cells, and monitor cell to cell interactions.
Claims28
A method of assessing functional characteristics of T cells comprising:
- adding cancer cells into a culture system including a matrix bio scaffold and allowing an engraftment period for cancer cells to engraft into said matrix bio scaffold,
- removing the matrix bio scaffold containing engrafted cancer cells from said culture system and placing the matrix bio scaffold into a compartment of a multi-compartment cell culture apparatus comprising:
- at least a first compartment, a second compartment, and a third compartment, each compartment separated from adjacent compartments by a common wall, wherein the wall is mated to a bottom of the compartments, and adapted to hold a volume of medium at a medium volume to bottom footprint ratio of at least 2, each compartment including at least one permanently open passage, wherein the permanently open passage is an opening through the common wall, connecting the bottom of adjacent compartments that allows the contents of one compartment to communicate with another, the bottom of the compartments being gas permeable, the bottom of the compartments and the bottom of the permanently open passages being flat in a common horizontal plane, and not including medium mixing equipment, medium perfusion equipment, or gas pumping equipment;
- and
- adding a volume of medium into the multi-compartment cell culture apparatus,
- adding T-Cells into a compartment that differs from the compartment that the matrix bio scaffold containing engrafted cancers cells is added, and allowing a period of time for the T cells to follow a chemokine gradient expressed by the cancer cells, and
- measuring the presence of the T Cells in the compartment containing the matrix bio scaffold.
A method of assessing functional characteristics of T cells comprising:
- Adding cancer cells into a matrix bio scaffold that is attached to the bottom of a compartment of a multi-compartment cell culture apparatus comprising:
- at least a first compartment, a second compartment, and a third compartment, each compartment separated from adjacent compartments by a common wall, wherein the wall is mated to a bottom of the compartments, and adapted to hold a volume of medium at a medium volume to bottom footprint ratio of at least 2, each compartment including at least one permanently open passage, wherein the permanently open passage is an opening through the common wall, connecting the bottom of adjacent compartments that allows the contents of one compartment to communicate with another, the bottom of the compartments being gas permeable, the bottom of the compartments and the bottom of the permanently open passages being flat in a common horizontal plane, and not including medium mixing equipment, medium perfusion equipment, or gas pumping equipment;
- adding a volume of medium into the multi-compartment cell culture apparatus, allowing an engraftment period for the cancer cells to engraft into said matrix bio scaffold;
- adding T-Cells into a compartment that differs from the compartment that the matrix bio scaffold is attached, allowing a period of time for the T cells to follow a chemokine gradient expressed by the cancer cells;
- and
- measuring the presence of the T Cells in the compartment containing the matrix bio scaffold.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.