In 1950 the physicist Otto Schmitt draw the attention of the technological benefits that can provide to imitate the solutions that living beings display to solve their limitations, and call the technology based on the imitation of living beings “biomimetics”.
In 1958 the MD, Jack E. Steele named the devices that include in their technological foundation bio imitations, “bionic” devices.
Young researchers generate new ideas, discover information with new studies, and give new interpretations to old data. Both young and highly competitive researchers are conducting the progress. But young researchers are corseted by the past. They use methods and instruments that their tutors knew and used in their best times. Many of them are suitable for new research, but others are not. Those that are not adequate is because they are obsolete, based on archaic concepts, sometimes wrong, or subject to technical limitations that no longer exist.
The cultures in vitro, of animal or microbial cells, is a classic instrument used in biological investigations. With them, cell and bimolecular behaviors are studied, and nucleic acids are drawn out to develop down the molecular mechanisms of inheritance and biocontrol. Thus, cell culture occupies a central position in biological research. Still, the applied science of cell cultures is the one that most suffer from obsolete materials and methods, created about 200 years ago, at the start of the 19th century, although with cosmetic touches, or adjustment to modern times, without getting around with its archaic rules. These outdated instruments are still given over to new researchers, as methods and doctrinal substance.
One of the most decrepit instruments are the cell culture containers: Dishes and flasks with minor adaptations, that facilitate its use in certain machines, or increases its capacity to produce more cells in a smaller volume, but while still being passive containers, with different shapes, no much more sophisticated than those that could distinguish between glasses of water and glasses of champagne.
With the flasks and plates, an assemblage of tools was generated to assist in transferring liquids between them. Pipettes, mono-channel and multichannel pipettes, and the corresponding tips, etc. The technical game focused on opening and closing the culture vials, and transferring the liquids without being contaminated, despite the primitive nature of its use. Then, the laboratory staff rushed to acquire skills in the use of all paraphernalia. Later, that laboratory staff became the body of instructors in charge of teaching the technique to young researchers. Then, they had the opportunity to show their skills in front of the astonished gaze of the novices, appearing as expert goldsmiths, jugglers, or magicians. And, in their profession they were. But that does not solve the scientific problems. Young scientists impressed by the skills of their instructors, strive to practice the same juggling techniques with precision and efficiency, but never ignored the rudimentary nature of their fundamentals. However, the fear of error limits them to try other methods, and they are still tied to tradition, even if it is senseless.
The flask and the culture dish have to be “incubated” in a suitable environment, free of microbes, at a temperature appropriate for cellular biochemistry. The inert nature of the cell culture vials forced the development of incubators, capable of controlling the environment, regulating the temperature, humidity and partial pressure of the fundamental environmental gases such as oxygen, nitrogen, and CO2 so that the aqueous media of the cell culture have the right components for cell life. For more than 100 years, it appeared logical to think that oxygen at atmospheric concentration was the best path to produce cells. Yet, 60 years ago, it was revealed that although logical, it was totally improper. That concentration of atmospheric oxygen-induced, by passive diffusion in the culture medium, a true hyperoxia, responsible for an excess of free radicals that slowed cell growth and altered cellular biochemistry. The slow technological reaction to this limitation was to develop incubators that regulate, in addition to temperature and humidity, the concentration of gases, including oxygen and CO2 sensors, with programmable logic controllers, by the opening or closing solenoid valves, connecting gas tanks to the incubator chamber. The systems have been refined to reduce the hysteresis of the sensor-valve reactions, and achieve almost stable gas concentrations until the incubator doors are opened. Keeping the doors closed is essential because otherwise the rupture of the gaseous environment is fast and the recovery is very slow, leaving a long gap of the wrong environment. Moreover, achieving the proper concentration of gases in the true periphery of cultured cells is inaccurate and represents a challenge.
Mammals have an adaptive response system to changes in oxygen and CO2 concentration in the blood. Colonies of chemoreceptor cells, combined with nerve endings, detect changes in the concentration of these gases dissolved or transported in the blood, thereby signaling the vegetative nervous system to increase pulmonary ventilation or blood flow.
Oviparous embryonic development takes place inside the egg, from which the shell controls the diffusion of gases, avoiding direct contact between the highly concentrated oxygen atmosphere with the embryonic cells.
Based on that property of animals and how to resolve variations in the availability of oxygen and CO2, through the sensitivity of their own cells. Celartia developed a bionic cell culture bioreactor for cell culture, the Ducted Respiratory Chamber bioreactor (1), Petaka G3 with a biomimetic mechanism capable of adjusting the diffusion rates of oxygen and CO2 in the pericellular medium, in response to the existing availability of these gases in the medium itself (see Fig.1). In these bioreactors, the sensors are the cells in the culture, and they are also the cells, which pull the strings of the diffusion rate of gases from the atmosphere, in and out of the culture medium. As in mammals, in these devices, a biological device composed of cells of the same culture, controls the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide that the cells they need. The user does not have to extrapolate or imagine what grade of oxygen or CO2 level has to program in his glove box or tri-gas incubator, the bionic device automatically adjusts them to the degree demanded by the cultured cell type, according to its genetics and physiological condition. As a container for cell culture, Petaka G3 mimics the conditions of a living egg in which its shell maintains the biological settings of self-regulation of oxygen supply, pH and osmotic balance of the home environment, where cells grow with the nutritional reserves that the instrument has in the oven, allowing cells to spring up in their environment while preserving the biological ambient limits for the specific cell type and metabolic demands.
From the technician’s position, these instruments do not require incubators with gas control, nor trays of water to maintain the humidity saturation in the environment, they are like the eggs of birds, or reptiles, they only require heat to guarantee the growth of the cells that house inside.
These instruments, like eggs, can be handled in open atmosphere, on top of the laboratory bench, without altering the interior environment, thus giving the user absolute freedom of movement.
As for the contribution of heat, any balanced source is good, simple microbiology incubators, thermostatic baths or thermostatic plates such as those used in vitro fertilization laboratories to heat the embryos. The cell may grow even with the body heat, held in a pocket of the user. These cassettes are a practical demonstration of Otto Schmitt’s theories that postulate that when biological mechanisms can be applied to technological devices, mechanical-biological hybrids bring remarkable benefits (2). Through the avian early development oxygen and CO2 move across the eggshell according to the simple laws of diffusion (3) (4).
As a container for cell culture, the Pataka G3 meets the best performances of the best flasks and dishes, and adds the biological condition of self-regulation of oxygen supply, carbon dioxide and osmotic balance of the internal medium, allowing cells to develop in the environment they experienced in their original tissues.
These instruments can be handled on top of the laboratory bench without altering the interior environment, thus giving the user absolute freedom of movement.
As for the contribution of heat, any balanced source is good, simple incubators for bacteria, thermostatic baths or thermostatic plates such as those used in in vitro fertilization laboratories, to heat the embryos.
These cassettes are a practical demonstration of Otto Schmitt’s theories that postulate that when biological mechanisms can be applied to technological devices, mechanical-biological hybrids bring remarkable benefits.
REFERENCES
1.- Barbera & Gallagher (2012). Ducted Respiratory Chamber ioreactors. GEN Vol. 32 no. 19. doi:10.1089/gen.32.19.18
2.- https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/cb40/afa36b66099f0e1e75f10d980b737d5a3f07.pdf
3.- Burton, F.G., Tullett, S.G. (1985) Respiration of avian embryos. Comp. Biochem. Phvsiol. Vol. 82A, 4, pp. 735-744.
4.- Ruth Bellairts, Boyde, A. (1969) Scanning Electron Microscopy of the Shell Membranes of the Hen’s Egg. Z. Zellforsch. 96, 237-249.
