Cell preservation or culturing arrangement
AssigneeKoninklijke Philips N.V.
InventorsEduard Gerard Marie Pelssers, Cornelis Petrus Hendriks, Reinhold Wimberger-Friedl, Mark Thomas Johnson, Achim Hilgers
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Abstract
A biological cell preservation or culturing arrangement (20) comprises a chamber defining a fluid retaining space (30) for retaining in use a body of fluid (34) and a deformable membrane (36) in communication with the fluid retaining space, and being manipulable by an electroactive polymer actuator arrangement (38) to undergo a defined topology change to induce in the fluid a pattern of fluid flow by which fluid is exchanged between a sub-region (46) immediately proximal the deformable membrane and a sub-region (48) removed from the deformable membrane.
Claims18
A biological cell preservation arrangement comprising:
- a chamber being a fluidically closed fluid retaining space configured to retain a volume of fluid and retain biological cells in the volume of fluid;
- an impermeable deformable membrane within the chamber, and
- an electroactive polymer actuator arrangement configured to deform the deformable membrane, and
- a controller that controls the electroactive polymer actuator arrangement to change in a surface topology of the deformable membrane,
- wherein the controller changes the surface topology in a sequence of topology changes to produce a flow of the fluid in a direction that corresponds to a direction of the sequence of topology changes and is parallel to a plane of the deformable membrane.
A biological container comprising:
- a fluidically closable chamber comprising a fluid retaining space configured to retain a volume of fluid comprising biological material;
- wherein the chamber comprises one or more deformable membranes;
- a first electroactive polymer actuator arrangement;
- a second electroactive polymer actuator arrangement;
- and
- a controller;
- wherein the first and second electroactive polymer actuator arrangements are situated at opposing first and second surfaces of the chamber;
- wherein the controller is configured to control the first and second electroactive polymer actuator arrangements to change a first topology of the first surface and a second topology of the second surface;
- wherein the controller is configured to change the first topology and the second topology to induce a first flow of the fluid in a first direction parallel to the first surface, and a second flow of the fluid in a second direction parallel to the second surface;
- wherein the first direction is opposite to the second direction, thereby inducing a circular flow of the fluid within the chamber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.