A team from the Institute of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry at Zurich University of Applied Sciences has developed a liquid-handling cell culture platform featuring an imaging system from Roche.
The high-throughput Cellavista imaging system - said to be an important component of the new cell culture platform - is designed for the non-invasive measurement of cell expansion and the fluorescence measurement of cell quality.
Recently reported in the 'Journal of the Association of Laboratory Automation', the large-scale laboratory platform was created to expand the benefits of regenerative medicine.
It is designed to isolate, expand and characterise human primary cells.
The Cellavista imaging system uses bright-field and fluorescence detection with multi-well plates, chamber slides or Roboflasks.
It is an important component in the new automated cell culture platform that incorporates additional novel tools, featuring advanced robotics for loading and unloading the centrifuge, a programmable homogeniser and clean air hood ventilation for purity level-four requirements (VDI 2083) and class 1000 (US Federal Standard 209).
The Cellavista analyser performed the automated microscopic evaluation for harvesting and reseeding human intervertebral disc cells at a density of 2,000 cells per square centimetre by measuring confluence directly in Roboflasks.
In addition, the fluorescence analysis features of the integrated Cellavista system were used for cell culture quality control based on phenotypic characterisation after the immunofluorescence staining of collagen type I and II.
Human intervertebral cells were chosen to develop the new platform because intervertebral disc degeneration is burdened by both the absence of reliable therapies and high healthcare costs.
