S161: Development of a chemically defined batch and feed medium for E. coli fermentations producing therapeutic proteins

The driving factors for E. coli nutritional development lie in the knowledge that E. coli can make nearly everything they need to survive and striving to lower the price of raw materials for the fermentation process.  As a result, two common nutritional paths have emerged, those based on complex components and those based on minimal salts.  The use of minimal salts media presents a very low cost, but mediocre productivity environment for recombinant products.  On the other hand, complex media, such as yeast extract, have slightly higher cost, yet very high productivity.  Taking advantage of the beneficial traits of complex media has come at the cost of understanding the fermentation design space since  researchers have a minimum understanding of the entire make-up of materials such as yeast extract.  This study attempts to bridge the gap between minimal salts media and a productive complex media by creating a fully defined media applied to recombinant therapeutic protein production.