cellasys will participate with the following contributions to the Microphysiological Systems World Summit 2022:
Talk: Systems engineering of microphysiometry
Poster: The cellasys #8 assay: An automated and standardized assay to address recovery effects
Poster: Reproducibility in Cell Culture: Replacing Fetal Bovine Serum
We look forward to meet you in New Orleans.
The evaluation of new cell culture media is usually conducted via weaning experiments, which require several weeks to acquire results for new media formulations. To accelerate the identification process and, hence, the successful development of new media formulations, we describe the cellasys #8 assay, which is a standardized microphysiometry method to evaluate enhanced cell culture media within 24 hours. As an example, the transition to a chemically defined media without serum is shown using L929 cells.
Wiest, J.: Systems Engineering of Microphysiometry, Organs-on-a-Chip, 2022, 4, 100016, doi: 10.1016/j.ooc.2022.100016
Welcome to “Heart-on-a-Chip: Microphysiometric monitoring of cardiomyocytes differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem cells” at the 7th German Pharm-Tox Summit.
Eggert, S.1, Hariharan, K.2, Wiest, J.1
1 cellasys GmbH, Kronburg / Germany
2 Fraunhofer-Institute for Biomedical Engineering (IBMT) – Fraunhofer Project Center for Stem Cell Process Engineering, Würzburg / Germany
Microphysiometry is the measurement of the functions and activities of life or of living matter and of the physical and chemical phenomena involved. It allows label-free monitoring of cellular metabolism and morphology of living cells and enables new applications in fields such as pharmacology or toxicology. Recently, we were able to extend the method toward monitoring of 3D cellular models, referred to as Organ-on-a-Chip.
To demonstrate the applicability of microphysiometry with human cardiomyocytes, a cellasys #8 assay [2] was performed via label-free and non-destructive monitoring of metabolic and morphological changes. IBMT cardiomyocytes from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) were cultivated on BioChips from day 22 to day 30. After transportation of the BioChips from Würzburg to Munich and overnight incubation, the cardiomyocytes were successfully checked optically for their beating activity. Then, a cellasys #8 assay was performed to identify changes after the transition from a serum-based to a chemically defined media without serum.
During the 24h cellasys #8 assay, the extracellular acidification and changes in impedance of the cells were monitored in real-time. The FBS-free medium caused a decrease in the metabolic activity; however, the impedance values did not change essentially. The results indicate that the FBS-free test medium is a candidate for further use in more defined experiments using hiPSCs.
The proof-of-principle measurement with human induced pluripotent stem cells demonstrated that microphysiometry is a promising tool for use in pharmacology and toxicology. In addition, it was possible to show that hiPSCs keep their functionality after a half day transportation between laboratories.
Joachim Wiest1, Frank Schulze2
ALTEX Proceedings, 2021, 9, 1, 329
Corresponding author’s e-mail: wiest@cellasys.com
1 cellasys GmbH
2 BfR – Centre for Documentation and Evaluation of Alternative Methods to Animal Experiments
Organ-on-chip (OoC) systems are a promising alternative to the still common animal experimentation. However, when compared to OoC systems found in literature such as lung, liver or kidney, bone is underrepresented as indicated by the rather low number of
proposed systems. One reason is that the development of bones in-vitro is a time-consuming process that can take up to several weeks. Currently, the process of matrix mineralization can only be investigated by end-point assays that require the destruction of the organoid. Therefore, a sensor-based, reliable and robust method for a non-invasive and continuous determination of in vitro matrix mineralization would be of great advantage, especially when 3D constructs are cultured in microphysiological bioreactors. In the presented work, we show data from impedance measurement on a collagen scaffold-dummy with osteogenic medium. Measurements were performed in a bioreactor (ID = 13 mm, height = 3mm) which was sandwiched by two impedance foils (Bio24, well B3 with passivated feed line). For impedance measurement a VersaSTAT 3 was used. Impedance spectroscopy from 1 Hz to 1MHz with an RMS of 30 mV was performed. The setup was mounted in a Faradic cage which was heated to 37°C. With the performed measurement we were able to distinguish pure osteogenic medium from a medium soaked collagen scaffold by approximately 60 Ω in the real part. During the performed proof-of-principle measurement no clear difference in the imaginary part of the impedance was visible. Further measurements with mineralized bone tissue are planned to further investigate the possibilities of the technology. The results indicate that the proposed geometry can be used to perform impedance measurement at bone scaffolds. Furthermore, a fixed frequency of 10kHz and 30mV seems to be suitable for the measurement.
Researchers at University of Riau / Indonesia used cellasys’s BioChips to realize a Yeast-on-a-Chip and an Algae-on-a-Chip.
cellasys was nominated by Bayern Innovativ for the Innovation Leben Award 2020.
