New approaches to better understanding large scale recombinant protein production

Over the years, Novozymes, a large and commercially successful Danish biotechnology company, with factories and R&D in USA, Europe and Asia, has in collaboration with the Danish Technical University (DTU), and other institutions, been active in pursuit of models which can describe fermentation process performance across a number of scales and technology platforms, and Novozymes has made some progress towards this goal. While this journey is by no means complete, results of work done on agitator geometry, oxygen transfer and characterization of the processes has taken us a good distance; much of this data can now be presented. In addition, there are now some further opportunities to take us even closer, namely, the development of low cost off the shelf programmable electronics packages gives us an unprecedented opportunity to peer into other wise opaque stainless steel reactors, and validate our progress towards better understanding what it is that we are doing, and what we will be doing even more of, in the near future.