Development of an optical system for on-line tracking of cell growth on microcarriers

为了使人们能够活得更长、生活得更积极，有必要开发新的、负担得起的、有效的治疗疾病的方法。在某些情况下，我们体内的细胞可以用来修复受损的组织或器官。然而，在成人中，这种修复机制非常有限，而且往往效率低下，因此我们可能需要依赖供体的细胞。不幸的是，由于修复需要数十亿细胞，例如修复心脏病患者的心肌，我们必须从供体中分离细胞并扩大其数量，然后才能将其用于治疗。到目前为止，我们可以在实验室规模上做到这一点，例如，在一个搅拌槽中产生数百万个间充质干细胞，持续两周。然而，当我们考虑如何在更大的生产规模上实现这一目标时，我们需要开发工具来帮助我们监测和控制这一过程，以确保以这种方式生长的细胞每次都是相同的——就像我们期望其他药物批次之间是相同的一样。这个可行性项目旨在结合生物学家和工程师的专业知识，创造一种光学设备，可以通过向操作员提供有关细胞数量和形态的信息来监测这些细胞在搅拌槽环境中的生长。如果成功，它将有助于优化生长条件，这样就可以持续制造足够的细胞来治疗多种患者。

In order that people can live longer and lead more active lives there is a need to develop novel affordable and effective treatments for ill health. In some cases, cells that we have within our own bodies can be used to repair damaged tissues or organs. However, in adults, this repair mechanism is very limited and often inefficient so we may need to rely on cells from donors. Unfortunately, since it takes billions of cells to repair, for example the heart muscle of a heart-attack patient, we must isolate cells from donors and expand their numbers before they can be used for treatment. So far we can do this at the laboratory scale, generating for instance, millions of mesenchymal stem cells in a stirred tank over a period of 2 weeks. However, as we consider how this will be achieved on a bigger manufacturing scale, we need to develop tools that will help us monitor and control the process to ensure the cells grown in this way are the same every time - just as we would expect other medicines to be identical from batch to batch. This feasibility project aims to combine the expertise of both biologists and engineers, to create an optical device that can monitor the growth of these cells in this stirred tank environment by giving the operator information about cell number and morphology. If successful, it will help optimise growing conditions so enough cells to treat multiple patients can be manufactured consistently.