In regenerative medicine for treating the disease by using own cells or cells of other person, the cells collected from a living body are used for transplantation treatment by increasing the number of cells by culturing them or constructing a tissue in a certain form. The culture of the cells used for the treatment should be performed as complying with the good manufacturing practice (GMP) in a clean room for the cell culture called as a cell processing center (CPC). The problem here is a point that it is necessary to use much labor and cost relative to cell preparation for one patient since the cells are cultured by a manual operation performed by a technical expert. In addition, there is a biological contamination risk caused by the manual operation.
As a method to solve the problems, an apparatus in which a cell culture process is automatically performed in a closed system has been developed. By using a closed-system culture container which does not need an operation for opening/closing a lid of the culture container, the cell culture process can be automated, and the biological contamination risk can be reduced.
A major operation which is manually operated at the time of the culture includes a cell seeding operation for feeding liquid culture medium in which the cells are suspended to a culture dish and an operation for exchanging the liquid culture medium which is regularly performed when the cells are cultured. In the manual operation, a predetermined amount of liquid is collected by using a dispenser used by attaching a disposable dispensing tip or a measuring pipette, and the liquid is added from the liquid culture medium in the liquid bottle to the culture dish. That is, the dispensation includes two actions, i.e., to determine the amount of the liquid and collect the liquid and to transfer the liquid to a target position. Regarding the automatic culture apparatus, there is a method for mechanizing the similar dispenser and adding the liquid by interlocking the collecting and transferring operations similarly to the manual operation. Since it is necessary to place the whole apparatus in a sterile environment, the automatic culture apparatus increases in size. On the other hand, when the pump is used for the dispensation operation, there is a method for connecting a space between the liquid bottle and the culture dish with a disposable tube and determining the liquid amount and feeding the liquid by the pump at the same time. In this case, it is preferable that inside the tube in which the liquid is fed be maintained in a sterile state, and an automatic apparatus can be reduced in size. PTL discloses an automatic culture apparatus for using a mechanized dispenser, and PTL 2 discloses an apparatus for feeding the liquid by the pump.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds