Automated Cell Culture Device with Sliding Clamping Mechanism
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional cell culture devices face inefficiencies and high labor costs due to manual fluid management, contamination risks, and unstable cell quality, especially during early stages when cell and fluid volumes are low, making automated processes unfeasible and costly.
Innovation Solution
An automated cell culture device with a main body and clamping member that includes sliding tracks, a clamping mechanism to prevent fluid dispersion, and mechanisms for controlled fluid injection and mixing, enabling automated and efficient cell culture by maintaining fluid concentration and optimizing cell interaction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Duration of action of moving object
If a large culture bag is used to accommodate future cell growth, then the device can support long-term culture, but the cells are dispersed in the whole culture bag during early stage making it difficult for cells to interact with other cells, thus reducing cell culture efficiency
Solution Approach 1:
The culture bag is divided into a culture area and a storage area by the partition structure. The partition includes a partition wall with through-holes that separate the culture bag into functional zones: the culture area where cells are concentrated for efficient interaction, and the storage area that holds additional culture medium. This segmentation allows the system to maintain high cell density and interaction efficiency in the culture area while having sufficient total volume for long-term culture expansion.
2Measurement precision
If manual extraction and injection of culture fluid is performed multiple times to monitor cell numbers, then cell culture quality can be monitored, but labor cost increases and contamination risk rises
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the culture fluid sampling function from the manual operation domain and integrates it into the automated device. The partition structure with controlled openings allows automatic sampling of culture fluid from the culture area without requiring manual extraction. This extraction of the sampling function enables automated monitoring of cell numbers while maintaining measurement precision and eliminating the need for repeated manual interventions.
3Productivity
If multiple culture bags of different sizes are used in different stages of cell culture, then cell culture efficiency can be optimized for each stage, but the risk of contamination increases and automated culture becomes impossible
Solution Approach 1:
The partition structure within the culture bag is designed to be dynamic and adjustable. The partition can be repositioned or reconfigured within the culture bag to create different effective culture volumes suitable for different growth stages. This dynamic adjustment capability allows a single culture bag to replace multiple fixed-size bags, maintaining optimal cell density and culture efficiency at each stage while eliminating the need to transfer cells between different bags, thereby reducing contamination risk and enabling automated culture processes.
Data Source
AI summary
An automated cell culture device includes a main body and a clamping member. The main body encloses a receiving space and has a platform on a top face thereof. The platform has a sliding track extending along a sliding direction. Two ends of the platform along the sliding direction are defined as a first end and a second end respectively. The platform is adapted for support a culture bag lying thereon. The culture bag has a fluid inlet at an end thereof closer to the first end of the platform. The clamping member is slidably disposed on the sliding track and is adapted for clamping and pressing the culture bag to avoid fluid in the culture bag from flowing toward an end of the culture bag closer to the second end of the platform. The clamping member is slidable on the culture bag along the sliding direction.