Use of magnetic resonance imaging to analyze the performance of hollow-fiber bioreactors.

Preliminary experiments were described that demonstrate that MRI is an effective tool for the noninvasive study of hollow-fiber bioreactors. Flow-compensated velocity-encoding pulse sequences were successively applied to analyze the velocity patterns in a module operated without cells, with an artificially induced flow field perturbation. Diffusion damping pulse sequences were also used to spatially resolve regions of cell growth in a bioreactor. These experiments provide the necessary basis from which future flow and spectroscopic studies can be conducted.