TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a cell treatment system to kill unwanted cells among cells cultured on a cell culture vessel and nurture desired cell aggregates.

BACKGROUND ART

Recently, fast growth has been witnessed in researches and developments of regenerative therapy technology and researches in drug discovery with the use of somatic stem cells, embryonic stem cells (ES cells), and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). In these researches and developments, it is crucial to be able to produce desired target cells and tissues in a large amount with high efficiency.

The process of cell culturing normally includes subculturing, which refers to the procedure of taking a cell clump out of a cell colony that has proliferated in a culture medium and then transferring the cell clump to a fresh culture medium for another round of proliferation (See following Patent Document, for example).

Currently cutting a plurality of clumps out of cells which have proliferated relies on manual operation. The cutting operation takes time and work, and besides the cutting operation can cause irregularities in the size of the clumps which result in variations in the state of growth of the subcultured cells, because it is influenced by skill of operators or other individual differences.

In regenerative therapy, cell aggregates to be transplanted for replacing or regenerating damaged tissues or organs of a patient should not contain any bad or undesired cells, otherwise rightful effect may not be exerted, moreover these cells may harm the patient's health by inducing tumorigenesis, for example. However, discarding a whole culture vessel contaminated with unwanted cells decreases the yield (the rate of harvesting) of target cells or tissues, making regenerative therapy very expensive. In order to increase the yield of target cells or tissues, it is desirable to kill or remove unwanted cells present in a culture vessel and thereby avoid wasting the other cells.

RELATED ART DOCUMENTS

Patent Documents

Patent document 1: Japanese Translation of PCT International Application Publication No. JP-T-2014-509192.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Problems to be Solved by the Invention

It is an object of the present invention to obtain cell aggregates each having a desired size more easily.

Means of Solving the Problems

According to the present invention, a cell treatment system to kill unwanted cells among cells cultured on a cell culture vessel and nurture desired cell aggregates is configured. The cell treatment system includes an imaging device to image all or a part of the cell culture vessel; an analysis unit to calculate the area or size of one or each of cell aggregates existing on the cell culture vessel based on pixel values from which the image captured by the imaging device is constituted; a display device to show the area or size of each of the cell aggregates calculated by the analysis unit on a display; a laser irradiator to emit laser toward the cell culture vessel so as to kill cells existing on the cell culture vessel; an input device to receive an operation input by a user, the operation input designating cells to be killed with irradiation of the laser or cells to survive without the irradiation of the laser among the cells existing on the cell culture vessel, or the operation input designating a position to be irradiated with the laser or a position not to be irradiated with the laser on the cell culture vessel; and a control unit to control a position irradiated with the laser emitted from the laser irradiator toward the cell culture vessel in accordance with the operation input received by the input device.

In particular, it is preferable that the analysis unit memorize an upper limit or a lower limit on the area or size of a cell aggregate and make a judgement on whether the area or size of each of the cell aggregates existing on the cell culture vessel exceeds the upper limit or the lower limit, the display device show a result of the judgement about each of the cell aggregates existing on the cell culture by the analysis unit on the display.

Also, according to the present invention, a cell treatment system to kill unwanted cells among cells cultured on a cell culture vessel and nurture desired cell aggregates is configured. The cell treatment system includes an imaging device to image all or a part of the cell culture vessel; an analysis unit to calculate the area or size of one or each of cell aggregates existing on the cell culture vessel based on pixel values from which the image captured by the imaging device is constituted, memorize an upper limit or a lower limit on the area or size of a cell aggregate, and make a judgement on whether the area or size of each of the cell aggregates existing on the cell culture vessel exceeds the upper limit or the lower limit; a laser irradiator to emit laser toward the cell culture vessel so as to kill cells existing on the cell culture vessel; and a control unit to control a position irradiated with the laser emitted from the laser irradiator toward the cell culture vessel in accordance with a result of the judgement by the analysis unit.

When the control unit controls the laser irradiator such that the laser is emitted so as to kill the cell aggregate which has the area or size smaller than the lower limit among the cell aggregates existing on the cell culture vessel, and cut the cell aggregate which has the area or size larger than the upper limit or reduce the area or size of it among the cell aggregates existing on the cell culture vessel, it is possible to equalize the size of each of the cell aggregates on the cell culture vessel.

Effects of the Invention

The present invention enables obtaining cell aggregates each having a desired size more easily.

