Automated cell management system for growth and manipulation of cultured cells

#The present invention generally relates to the field of cell culture; and more particularly to an automated system for management of culturing cells and manipulating the cultured cells.

#Basic operations for culturing cells may include, but are not limited to, initiation of a cell culture, maintenance of cell culture (e.g., storage under appropriate environmental conditions, replacement with tissue culture medium to renew nutrient availability, when desired in promoting cell growth), harvesting (e.g., harvesting the cultured cells and/or cell culture medium, particularly when the culture medium contains a substance produced by the cultured cells), and termination of the cell culture. A cell culture may be manipulated by one or more means that may include, but is not limited to: changing the environmental conditions to which the cell culture is exposed; treating the cultured cells with a biological substance for either evaluating the effect of the substance on the cultured cells, or for inducing the cultured cells to respond in a morphological, physiological, biological, or biochemical manner; and evaluating cultured cells by detecting and/or measuring (“determining”) one or more cell culture parameters which comprises one or more parameters of cultured cells and/or one or more parameters of the cell culture medium. As known to those skilled in the art, a parameter of cultured cells may include, but is not limited to, growth rate, morphology (e.g., size, shape, and the like), state of differentiation, granularity, migration, light scatter, attachment (anchorage-dependency or lack thereof), and the like. A parameter of the cell culture medium may comprise a chemical, biological, or physical characteristic of the medium (including, but not limited to, pH, oxygen content, CO2 content, nutrient content (e.g., glucose), and the like); or the presence of a product of cultured cells which is secreted, excreted, or released into the cell culture medium (including, but not limited to, metabolite, cytokine, recombinant product (e.g., protein, peptide, and the like), and the like). In culturing and manipulating cells, performed is a sequence of dissociated operations, wherein the sequence may be varied depending on the desired objective.

#Genomics, proteomics, and drug discovery are generating a need for expanded versatility of applications for manipulating cell cultures, as well as a greater need for efficient and economical growth of cultured cells in high volume (“high-throughput cell culture”). For example, in developing and testing one or more biological substances (e.g., including, but not limited to, genetic vectors, genetic sequences, vaccines, drugs, growth factors, cytokines, chemicals, enzymes, or the like), it may often be desirable to evaluate the response of cultured cells after treatment with a biological substance; and additionally to evaluate the responses in a multitude of treated cell cultures being grown simultaneously. It is known in the art (see, e.g., Genetic Engineering News 20:26, Sep. 1, 2000) that while a large cell culture lab may be able to handle simultaneously a few dozen cell cultures, the present systems are not adequate to meet industry's current demands for high-throughput cell culture. Despite advances in bioautomation technology, a bottleneck in implementing high-throughput cell culture is a lack of automated systems which maximize the number of cell cultures that can be grown and manipulated simultaneously. Thus, not only is there a need for an automated system for carrying out basic operations for culturing cells, there is also a need for an automated system for manipulating cultured cells (e.g., treating cultured cells with one or more biological substances, and may further include evaluating cultured cells for one or more cell culture parameters). Such an automated system would be capable of, as an integrated unit, performing dissociated operations associated with culturing cells and with manipulating cultured cells.

#FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an embodiment of an automated cell management system according to the present invention.

#FIG. 2 is a schematic representation of components, with a cross-section for viewing purposes, of an embodiment of an automated cell management system.

#FIG. 3 is an exploded perspective view of an embodiment of a storage array for holding a plurality of cell culture devices.

#Definitions

#The term “tissue culture medium” is used herein, for the purposes of the specification and claims, to mean a liquid solution which is used to provide sufficient nutrients (e.g., vitamins, amino acids, essential nutrients, salts, and the like) and properties (e.g., osmolarity, buffering) to maintain living cells (or living cells in a tissue) and support their growth. Commercially available tissue culture medium is known to those skilled in the art. The term “cell culture medium” is used herein, for the purposes of the specification and claims, to mean tissue culture medium that has been incubated with cultured cells in forming a cell culture; and more preferably refers to tissue culture medium that further comprises substances secreted, excreted or released by cultured cells, or other compositional and/or physical changes that occur in the medium resulting from culturing the cells in the presence of the tissue culture medium.

#Note in describing embodiments of the present invention, such terms as “first”, “second”, “lower”, “upper”, and the like are words of convenience in order to distinguish between different elements. Such terms are not intended to be limiting as to the sequence of a method or priority in which the different elements may be utilized.