Phoenix: A Portable, Battery-Powered, and Environmentally Controlled Platform for Long-Distance Transportation of Live-Cell Cultures.

Despite the advent of advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) in regenerative medicine, gene therapy, cell therapies, tissue engineering, and immunotherapy, the availability of treatment is limited to patients close to state-of-the-art facilities. The SCORPIO-V Division of HNu Photonics has developed the Phoenix-Live Cell TransportTM, a battery-operated mobile incubator designed to facilitate long-distance transportation of living cell cultures from GMP facilities to remote areas for increased patient accessibility to ATMPs. This work demonstrates that PhoenixTM (patent pending) is a superior mechanism for transporting living cells compared to the standard method of shipping frozen cells on dry ice (-80°C) or in liquid nitrogen (-150°C), which are destructive to the biology as well as a time consuming process. Thus, Phoenix will address a significant market need within the burgeoning ATMP industry. SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells were cultured in a stationary Phoenix for up to 5 days to assess cell viability and proliferation. The results show there is no significant difference in cell proliferation (∼5X growth on day 5) or viability (>90% viability on all days) when cultured in PhoenixTM and compared to a standard 5% CO2 incubator. Similarly, SH-SY5Y cells were evaluated following ground (1-3 days) and air (30 min) shipments to understand the impact of transit vibrations on the cell cultures. The results indicate that there is no significant difference in SH-SY5Y cell proliferation (∼2X growth on day 3) or viability (>90% viability for all samples) when the cells are subjected to the vibrations of ground and air transportation when compared to control samples in a standard, stationary 5% CO2 incubator. Furthermore, the temperature, pressure, humidity, and accelerometer sensors log data during culture shipment to ensure that the sensitive ATMPs are handled with the appropriate care during transportation. The PhoenixTM technology innovation will significantly increase the accessibility, reproducibility, and quality-controlled transport of living ATMPs to benefit the widespread commercialization of ATMPs globally. These results demonstrate that PhoenixTM can transport sensitive cell lines with the same care as traditional culture techniques in a stationary CO2 incubator with higher yield, less time and labor, and greater quality control than frozen samples.

The validity of psychomotor vigilance tasks of less than 10-minute duration.

The 10-min psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) has often been used to assess the impact of sleep loss on performance. Due to time constraints, however, regular testing may not be practical in field studies. The aim of the present study was to examine the suitability of tests shorter than 10 min. in duration. Changes in performance across a night of sustained wakefulness were compared during a standard 10-min PVT, the first 5 min of the PVT, and the first 2 min of the PVT. Four performance metrics were assessed: (1) mean reaction time (RT), (2) fastest 10% of RT, (3) lapse percentage, and (4) slowest 10% of RT. Performance during the 10-min PVT significantly deteriorated with increasing wakefulness for all metrics. Performance during the first 5 min and the first 2 min of the PVT deteriorated in a manner similar to that observed for the whole 10-min task, with all metrics except lapse percentage displaying significant impairment across the night. However, the shorter the task sampling time, the less sensitive the test is to sleepiness. Nevertheless, the 5-min PVT may provide a viable alternative to the 10-min PVT for some performance metrics.