Regenerative Medicine Bioreactor Drive System Development

This grant will fund the development of a fully-automated, computer-controlled drive system that will provide pulsatile flow to a large number of bioreactor chambers. The dynamic flow generated by this drive system can be used for cardiovascular regenerative medicine applications (primary goal) but can easily be adapted for orthopaedic or other engineered tissue applications that require oscillatory flow. This project will close the following gaps by: 

1. Providing a commercially-available bioreactor drive system that is robust, fully-automated and compatible with any type of bioreactor chamber that has inflow and outflow ports, 
2. Generating an instantaneous flow rate of up to 8.5 L/min and an average flow rate of 5.25 L/min based on 75bpm. These flow rates are sufficient to actively stimulate fully developed aortic, mitral and pulmonary valves or to stimulate multiple valves in the early stage of regeneration.
3. Being completely isolated from the tissue or culture media samples, and
4. Being designed for use in a GMP manufacturing facility to assist with commercialization of regenerative medicine products.