Bioreactor Gas Permeable Membrane Passive Ventilation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing bioreactors are expensive and ineffective in providing a cost-effective solution for capturing and incubating cells and biological materials, as they often require complex mechanical systems for nutrient delivery and waste removal, which are not suitable for laboratory or medical office settings.
Innovation Solution
A closed bioreactor system with a gas permeable membrane for passive ventilation, allowing for the exchange of gases like CO2 and O2, and the removal of cell waste without mechanical pumps, while maintaining sterility and enabling multi-day to multi-month cell incubation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If complex mechanical systems with pumps and instrumentation are used for nutrient delivery and waste removal, then cell growth support is improved, but system cost and complexity increase prohibitively
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and eliminates the complex mechanical pump and instrumentation systems from traditional bioreactors, replacing them with a passive diffusion-based gas exchange system. The gas permeable membrane allows oxygen and carbon dioxide to diffuse across without requiring mechanical pumping, thereby removing harmful complexity while maintaining cell growth support functionality.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent substitutes mechanical pumping systems with a passive diffusion mechanism. Instead of using mechanical pumps to deliver nutrients and remove waste, the system relies on diffusion gradients across a gas permeable membrane to achieve gas exchange, replacing complex mechanical action with a simple physical phenomenon.
2Reliability
If mechanical pumps and instrumentation are used for nutrient delivery and waste removal, then cell culture function is improved, but system cost increases to hundreds of thousands of dollars
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs a disposable gas permeable membrane that can be discarded after use, eliminating the need for expensive, reusable mechanical pump systems. This single-use approach reduces system cost dramatically while maintaining cell culture function, as the membrane is inexpensive compared to mechanical instrumentation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent removes the expensive mechanical pump and instrumentation components from the system, retaining only the essential gas exchange function through a low-cost permeable membrane. This extraction of unnecessary complexity directly reduces system cost to a fraction of traditional bioreactors.
3Reliability
If a closed system is used to maintain sterility, then contamination prevention is improved, but gas exchange capability deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses a gas permeable membrane that contains micropores allowing selective passage of gas molecules. This porous structure enables oxygen and carbon dioxide to diffuse across the membrane while maintaining the closed system's sterility barrier, simultaneously achieving both contamination prevention and gas exchange capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The gas permeable membrane acts as an intermediary between the sterile internal environment and the external atmosphere. It mediates gas exchange by allowing selective diffusion of respiratory gases while blocking larger contaminants and maintaining the sterile barrier, thus resolving the contradiction between closed system sterility and gas exchange needs.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system provides a cost-effective and efficient method for cell growth and waste management, allowing for optimal nutrition delivery and waste disposal through passive ventilation, suitable for small laboratories or medical offices, and enables the expansion and reinfusion of specific cells for medical applications.
Implementation Method 1
a gas permeable membrane that allows for passive ventilation
Implementation Method 2
use diffusion to provide cell access to nutrients
Data Source
AI summary
A method and system of and for handling, preserving, separating, filtering, collecting, manipulating, and/or culturing ex vivo biological material including red blood cells, white blood cells, and blood plasma within a bioreactor having a gas permeable membrane that allows for passive ventilation.