The present disclosure provides methods and materials for the cultivation and/or propagation of a photosynthetic organism. Such methods may comprise the use of a lamp assembly that comprises a plurality of circuit boards, each comprising at least three edges, arranged in a substantially spherical shape defining an interior lamp assembly volume, wherein the plurality of circuit boards comprise a first planar surface in contact with the interior lamp assembly volume and an opposing second planar surface comprising light emitting diodes (LEDs); and a barrier that surrounds the plurality of circuit boards forming the substantially spherical shape.

This disclosure describes hardware for microfluidic chips and an associated support module for facilitating operation of one or more microfluidic chips. The microfluidic chips described herein are designed for supporting multiple different tissue types, including kidney tissue, liver tissue, adipose cells, and so forth. Chip geometry facilities fluid flow through one or more channels of the chip with a particular flow rate. For example, shear forces are reduced where needed to ensure proper flow rate of fluid in the channels. The chamber geometry and the geometry of the channels ensures that a desired amount of oxygen is delivered to sample cells or tissues in a controlled manner.

Provided is a reaction apparatus for comprehensively measuring biodegradability of a material, comprising a device frame, an electrical control cabinet and a reaction chamber monomer. The upper side of the reaction chamber monomer is a reaction chamber body, and the lower part is a material receiving trolley. The top of the reaction chamber body is sealed by a chamber cover. A side wall is pasted with an electric heating plate and a thermal insulation cotton. A stirring paddle is arranged inside. An air inlet and an air outlet are respectively provided on a front and a rear wall. A discharging mechanism is located below. The electrical control cabinet separately controls the reaction conditions of each reaction chamber monomer. The present invention further relates to a use method thereof, which can realize the biodegradability evaluation in such three aspects as material degradation rate, disintegration rate and ecological non-toxicity test.

An apparatus, that relates to the field of in vitro fertilization, is provided for the combined incubation and vitrification of a biological material. The apparatus can be configured to allow for automatic incubation and vitrification of a viable biological material. Thereby predetermined protocols for handling the biological material can be performed precisely and accurately thus avoiding errors and deviations from the intended protocol, as caused by manual human intervention.

The present set of embodiments relate to a bioproduction system, method, and apparatus for creating a scalable bioreactor system. Specifically, the present set of embodiments enable the determination of bioreaction performance characteristics of a commercial scale by matching operational parameters between a small test scale bioreaction to that of a commercial scale bioreaction. The system and methods do not rely on simply making bioreactor apparatuses across scales the same dimensionally which would not account for differences in fluid dynamic properties between very small to very large volumes, but requires tuning of a variety of systems (mixing assembly, sparger system, and headspace airflow system) in conjunction with one another to achieve predictive outcomes.

Systems and methods interconnect cell culture devices and/or fluidic devices by transferring discrete volumes of fluid between devices. A liquid-handling system collects a volume of fluid from at least one source device and deposits the fluid into at least one destination device. In some embodiments, a liquid-handling robot actuates the movement and operation of a fluid collection device in an automated manner to transfer the fluid between the at least one source device and the at least one destination device. In some cases, the at least one source device and the at least one destination device are cell culture devices. The at least one source device and the at least one destination device may be microfluidic or non-microfluidic devices. In some cases, the cell culture devices may be microfluidic cell culture devices. In further cases, the microfluidic cell culture devices may include organ-chips.

A cell culture bioreactor has membranes divided into a plurality of zones. The membranes may include perfusion membranes carrying a liquid media and/or gas transfer membranes. The bioreactor has one or more sensors configured to collect data from one or more locations within the bioreactor. The supply of one or more of the gaseous and/or liquid media to a selected zone or zones may be controlled. In some examples, the supply includes a background supply and a selectable incremental supply. The bioreactor may be used to grow cells in suspension. Liquid media circulates within an extra-capillary space of the bioreactor. In some examples, a portion of cells is permitted for a period of time to be restrained within one or more zones of the membranes. Elements of a reactor may be made in a mold. A reactor may be operated in a fed-batch process.

A cell culture device for culturing cells in a closed container kept in an aseptic state includes: a chamber including an opening/closing part capable of being opened and closed; a connection path configured to connect closed containers accommodated in the chamber to each other and each having an inside kept in an aseptic state; a driving part configured to move cells from one closed container to the other closed container via the connection path; and a container attachment/detachment device. After the cells are moved from one closed container to the other closed container, the container attachment/detachment device is configured to remove one closed container from the connection path while maintaining an aseptic state inside the other closed container and the connection path, and connect a new closed container loaded into the chamber to the connection path while maintaining an aseptic state inside the new closed container.

In preferred embodiments, the subject invention provides two-vessel fermentation systems for producing microbe-based products comprising fungal mycelia and/or spores, and/or bacterial endospores, wherein the systems comprise both a submerged fermentation vessel and a solid state fermentation (SSF) vessel. Advantageously use of the two phases improves the efficiency of producing microorganisms by catering to the different requirements for biomass and/or vegetative cell accumulation as well as the requirements for mycelial growth and/or sporulation.

Incubators including an enclosure with an internal chamber configured to support a cell culture plate comprising a plurality of wells are disclosed. The enclosure includes a plurality of openings configured to allow access to the wells. The incubators include a sealing element configured to seal the plurality of openings in the enclosure. The sealing element comprises a plurality of openings corresponding to at least a subset of the plurality of openings in the enclosure. Access to the internal chamber can be provided by aligning the plurality of openings in the sealing element with the plurality of openings in the enclosure. Methods for using the incubators are also provided.