Recycling Enabled Autonomous Cell Culture System

Characterization of the effects of radiation on biological specimens Beyond Low Earth Orbit (BLEO), while dealing with the difficulties of isolation and distance from earth presents a challenging problem for multiple reasons. Organisms require that physiologically relevant environmental conditions to be maintained for optimal performance, including temperature, pressure, pH, and dissolved gases. Additionally, nutrients need to be added to the culture to facilitate sustained cell growth, and these nutrients must be balanced against the cells’ secretion of waste products into their microenvironment. Due to the minimal power available and a limited supply of compressed gas, feed, and fresh media, there is a finite time that experiments can theoretically run. Sciperio will apply their innovations in biomanufacturing to biologic experiments on the International Space Stations (ISS) or commercial space stations as a proving ground before extended BLEO missions. Many of the challenges presented such as automation, resource management, in-situ measurements, and autonomous decision making have been addressed by Sciperio. A key technology that will be adapted is the media recycling capability which presents a clearly unique solution to the metabolic waste generated by cells and has a minimum 20 to 1 weight and volume reduction in the media needs for a biologic experiments. Sciperio’s modular and highly sensorized bioreactor will be adapted to the space domain and will allow for in line analysis and environmental control as well as parallel or expandable cultures. A database and supporting software developed will allow for logging and remote monitoring of bioreactor operations and Machine Learning algorithms that are currently under development give a clear path to augmented or fully autonomous experimental decisions to be made.