In this study

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is used to investigate and compare the impact of bioreactor parameters (such as its geometry

medium flow-rate

scaffold configuration) on the local transport phenomena and

hence

their impact on human mesenchymal stem cell (hMSC) expansion. The geometric characteristics of the TissueFlex® (Zyoxel Limited

Oxford

UK) microbioreactor were considered to set up a virtual bioreactor containing alginate (in both slab and bead configuration) scaffolds. The bioreactor and scaffolds were seeded with cells that were modelled as glucose consuming entities. The widely used glucose medium

Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM)

supplied at two inlet flow rates of 25 and 100 μl·h

-1

was modelled as the fluid phase inside the bioreactors. The investigation

based on applying dimensional analysis to this problem

as well as on detailed three-dimensional transient CFD results

revealed that the default bioreactor design and boundary conditions led to internal and external glucose transport

as well as shear stresses

that are conducive to hMSC growth and expansion. Furthermore

results indicated that the ‘top-inout’ design (as opposed to its sy

mmetric counterpart) led to higher shear stress for the same media inlet rate (25 μl·h

-1

)

a feature that can be easily exploited to induce shear-dependent differentiation. These findings further confirm the suitability of CFD as a robust design tool.