Innovative Biotech company EpiBone choose Cole-Parmer’s Masterflex L/S peristaltic pumps for their breakthrough technology.
As with any other high-tech, state-of-the-art process, new biotechnology requires every component of the system to exhibit superb functionality to match the brilliance of the innovative technique. EpiBone, an award-winning biotech start-up business founded in 2013, have developed a method of creating ‘personalised bone’ using a patient’s own stem cells and a small bioreactor system to grow replacement bone tissue.
This technique offers huge advantages for bone replacement surgery over existing approaches and materials: there is minimal chance of rejection by the patient’s body, new bone obviates the need for tissue grafts from another part of a patient’s anatomy and hence reduces hospital surgery time and costs as well.
EpiBone’s patented bioreactor system uses data from a CT scan and 3D fabrication to produce a custom-designed scaffold that is seeded with the patient’s stem cells. Nutrients are then pumped into the bioreactor and mechanical stimuli are applied to help the cells develop and expand into pre-shaped bone tissue scaffold, producing new tissue in around a month.
Precise flow rates and temperature control of nutrients is critical to the proper development of the stem calls on the scaffold and so when considering which pump to employ, EpiBone decided on a Masterflex L/S peristaltic pump from Cole-Parmer.
The Masterflex L/S pump provided the ideal solution. As a peristaltic pump it ensured that nutrients remained sterile, but it was small enough to fit in the incubator that also encompassed the small bioreactor. For their approach the ability to control the flow rate is particularly vital and the ability to adjust from microlitre to hundreds of ml per minute is important as they address producing larger pieces of bone.
A video about EpiBone’s groundbreaker methodology, which illustrates the Masterflex L/S peristaltic pump in action, can be viewed on the Cole-Parmer video.
