Advances in Micro-Bioreactor Design for Organ Cell Studies

Dear Colleagues,

Micro-bioreactors offer unique opportunities to study biological systems under fluidic conditions. The concept of micro-bioreactors suggests that biological reaction conditions at a large scale can be scaled down to micro-volumes while maintaining performance and functionality. Models and operation principles can be simulated at a smaller scale, either by scaling down organs in the human body, or bioreactors for the production of biologics. Dynamical models can be evaluated if space and volumes can be precisely handled and reproducibly for monitoring and molecular analysis. The gain will be lesser amounts of samples and cells, compact analytical setups, and new possibilities to run parallel and scaled-out experiments.

However, implementation and successful commercial exploitation of research results in micro-bioreactor and organ-on-chip designs have been few or slow. The reasons are numerous: Reproducibility of the biological activity in the miniaturized system is difficult to achieve, access to sensors that can be used in the devices is limited, adverse effects of scale are often difficult to avoid, and the fabrication of materials that are biocompatible and, at the same time, suitable for mass production are few.

The current Special Issue wants to highlight new engineering designs of micro-bioreactors, which present solutions that can cope with these shortcomings. In particular, new methods for monitoring of organ cells under in vivo-like conditions are welcomed. In addition, solutions that provide improvements of current methods, case studies with new prototypes for drug testing disease models. Of special interest are studies with deployment of hybrid models for multi-parametric control. The Special Issue is open for any kind of organ cell types or micro-bioreactor designs. Examples of contributions could address: 

• Human organ cells in 3D scaffolds that mimic cell-cell interactions in vivo tissues
• Co-cultures of combinations organ cell types
• Online sensor methods for in situ monitoring inside the reactor
• In situ imaging of organ cell biomarkers
• Animal and human models of heart, liver or brain mimicked in micro-bioreactors
• New devices for parallel or scaled-out operation

We look forward to receiving your contributions for this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Carl-Fredrik Mandenius
Guest Editor

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