| Regenerative medicine is called the dreamlike medicine in the 21st century, the goal of which is to culture cells of patients, regenerate tissues, and treat diseases. Regenerated skins have been already used in treatment for severe burns, while at the same time, in clinical research for myocardium, cartilage, bone, cornea, etc., track records have been built up. Cell culture is performed manually by experts in CPF (Cell Processing Facility), a clean room for medical use, during which any contamination or errors would not be tolerated. We considered automation of manual cell culture protocols would be essential for practical application of regenerative medicine and worked on development of automated cell culture system. For humans, preventing contamination or errors is difficult, however, for robots, it is rather easy since it is their area of specialty. We therefore adopted a robot at the heart of the system. Cell culture is needed not only in regenerative medicine but also in drug discovery (development of new drugs). Although automation of manual cell culture protocols for practical application of regenerative medicine takes many years, drug discovery is in need of it now. We changed some specifications of the system and developed a system that could be used for drug discovery. We introduce the both systems for regenerative medicine and for drug discovery as automated cell culture systems. For drug discovery, a larger variety of cell cultures are needed than for regenerative medicine, and also cost is regarded as important. We pursued the goal of improving cost-effectiveness by enhancing work efficiency through the method that a specialized machine would perform some tasks that a robot was performing.
To address needs in regenerative medicine, decontamination control function at a practical level would be needed in the system. Aiming to realize installing auto decontamination function that automatically cleans contamination in the system if contamination should occur, we decided to install a gas sterilizer with hydrogen peroxide, which has been used in medical devices and proven to be effective, in the system. In 2010, 15th RSJ Technical Innovations AwardsIn 2010, Hyogo governor’s award in Hyogo grand awards for Monozukuri Technology
In 2010, first prize of the 4th robot award of the year (service robot category)
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