Residence Time Distribution (RTD) Analysis of a Bioreactor's External Recirculation Loop for a Tissue Engineering Test Bed

Abstract

Currently, in tissue engineering, the focus is on morphing cells into a particular type of tissue by hand, rather than automating the process. Automating cell feeding and waste removal, alone,still requires the removal of cells from their culture to perform imaging and analysis. Without the ability to automate the imaging in a way that does not risk cell death, the advantages of automating the feeding and waste removal are largely lost. By building a fully automated tissue engineering test bed, the capacity for cell reproducibility and cell yield increases significantly. This thesis outlines the design, some initial testing, and some validation of a fully automated tissue engineering test bed. The goals of this thesis are twofold. Firstly, the goal is to design the plumbing, instrumentation, and control aspects of a fully autonomous test bed. Secondly, the goal is to validate the plumbing by confirming that the net adsorption on the plumbing walls is negligible via residence time distribution analysis with dye and glucose tracers.