Technologies

Cell isolation form different donor tissue (e.g. umbilical cord, adipose tissue, bone marrow)

Advanced 3 D techniques for stem cell isolation

Cultivation of cell under hypoxic conditions

Application of dynamic (3 D) culture conditions incl. mechanical stimulation (e.g. shear stress, straining/loading)

Characterization and functional testing of stem cells

Biomaterial testing

Co- culture systems

Integration of sensors in tailor made cultivation systems for monitoring cell culture processes (e.g. oxygen, pH, glucose)

Bioreactor Systems

  • A small catheter inside of the reaction chamber delivers real time data of the graft cultured.
  • Stirred tanks are widely used in fermentation, but can also be used for dynamic culture of (stem) cells.
  • These small reactor chambers are connected to peristaltic pumps and enable continuous or dynamic perfusion of small TE-grafts
  • Porous scaffolds seeded with cells can be perfused in parallel
  • As the name implies this reactor consists of tightly packed hollow fibres. The space inside and outside of the fibres can be seeded with cells and perfused indipendently.
  • The individual fibres in more detail.
  • Similar as a sirred tank, but the mixing of the cells is done by a vertical wheel ("Hamsterrad") that can be driven by magnetic force.
  • Another perfusable reactor; the chamber is devided by a permeable membrane where the cells can grow on both the top and bottom side.
  • The experimental set up including media reservoir and pump inside a cell culture incubation system

Laboratory Equipment

  • Equipped with 3 pumps, 3 motors and a dark field microscope
  • With the use of nitrogen it is possible to provide a "hypoxic" (5% O2) environment within our incubators for the cells
  • One of 4 sterile work benches for aseptic cell culture
  • The ZRP system allows for dynamic cell culture in a closed and independent system with different reactor chambers available.

Equipment and Resources

3 fully furnished cell culture laboratories (ca. 150 m²)

4 sterile workbenches

5 incubators with 2 of them allowing for hypoxic conditions

4 additional specialized incubation systems for the operation of bioreactors (dynamic cultivation including mechanical stimulation) equipped with various sensors and a flow-through microscope

Various bioreactors systems for cell expansion (e.g. stirred tank, hollow fibre, vertical wheel) and differentiation (e.g. perfusion, straining/hydrostatic pressure)

3 transmission light microscopes, a fluorescence microscope, live-cell-imaging (JuLi)

Additional laboratory space for standard microbiological analytics:

plate-reader, PCR/ qPCR, NanoDrop, DNA/SDS-gel-electrophoreses, western blot, HPLC, photometer, Bioanalyzer, flow cytometry, Pre-Sense sensor systems for O2 and pH measurements, glucose/lactate analyser (YSI).

Additionally, access to various Core Facilities: TEM, REM, confocal microscopy, cell sorting, nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA, Zeta View) device, etc.

Excellent collaboration with the Universitätsklinikum Tulln, the Vienna General Hospital, the Medical University Graz and the Agaplesion Diakonie Klinikum Hamburg ensures supply with primary mesenchymal stem cells from donor tissue.

Collaboration with University Vienna and Technical University Vienna for Proteomics analyses

Collaboration with Veterinary School Vienna (VetCore, Anatomy) for µCT/nano-CT and specialized microscopic techniques, Histology

Collaboration with Danube University Krems for extracellular vesicles characterization

all images displayed © ICTCT, BOKU Vienna

Inhalt nur im Web sichtbar, wird nicht gedruckt