Prediction of cell growth rate over scaffold strands inside a perfusion bioreactor

Mathematical and computational modeling of the dynamic process where tissue scaffolds are cultured in perfusion bioreactors is able to provide insight into the cell and tissue growth which can facilitate the design of tissue scaffolds and selection of optimal operating conditions. To date, a resolved-scale simulation of cell growth in the culture process, by taking account of the influences of the supply of nutrients and fluid shear stress on the cells, is not yet available in the literature. This paper presents such a simulation study specifically on cartilage tissue regeneration by numerically solving the momentum, scalar transport and cell growth equations, simultaneously, based on the lattice Boltzmann method. The simulation uses a simplified scaffold that consists of two circular strands placed in tandem inside a microchannel, with the object of identifying the effect of one strand on the other. The results indicate that the presence of the front strand can reduce the cell growth rate on the surface of the rear strand, depending on the distance between them. As such, the present study allows for investigation into the influence of the scaffold geometry on the cell growth rate within scaffolds, thus providing a means to improve the scaffold design and the culture process.