Thesis presented November 25, 2014

Abstract :
Cell culture is a simple process but requires a lot of manual steps such as cell seeding every two to three days requiring itself steps of manual pipetting, periodic renewal of the nutritional medium, handling of cell culture in a controlled incubator (temperature, humidity, CO₂, O₂). These operations are of course sources of hazards and contamination. 
In this thesis, a microfluidic bioreactor was developed to miniaturize and automate cell culture. Integrated solutions have been proposed to provide continuously the proper conditions for cell proliferation (perfusion, thermal regulation…) and investigations were conducted to automate the cell harvesting phase. The originality of the work relies on the fact that cells were grown on micro carriers (i.e.​ microbeads, diam.: 175 microns) that no miniaturized culture system has addressed so far.


Keywords:
Continuous cell culture, bioreactor, microfluidics, micro carriers​, thermosensitive polymer

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