Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - 2:30 PM
S29

The micro bioreactor toolbox: Capabilities of online fermentation monitoring and scale up aspects of shaken micro bioreactors

Frank Kensy, m2p-labs GmbH, Forckenbeckstr. 6, Aachen, 52074, Germany

In the last decade several micro bioreactor concepts have been developed to fulfill the demand of an increasing number of new bioprocess developments. Beside the continuous growing throughput of experiments more effort is spent on process information and scale up capabilities. Microtiter plates play a predominant role in biotechnology labs. They provide an intrinsic high-throughput, are easy to handle and are ready for automation. In recent years standard microtiter plates were subject to intensive mass transfer characterizations and became instrumented with several optical sensors.

This talk will introduce into an online multi-parameter measurement technology which will transform microtiter plates into an efficient micro bioreactor toolbox in screening and early bioprocess development.

In the first section, the characterization of oxygen transfer rates in standard microtiter plates and the newly developed Flowerplate are presented. Oxygen transfer conditions were found to be crucial for scale up of results from micro-scale formats to lab-scale fermenters. Therefore, defined engineering parameters and high oxygen transfer rates (OTR > 100 mmol/L/h) in micro-scale are prerequisites for successful scale up.  

In the second section, the basic measurement principle of multi-parameter reading from shaken microtiter plates will be introduced. Beside the biomass measurement via scattered light and fluorescence measurement via fluorescence emission from the cell suspension, also the combined measurement of immobilized pH and DOT optodes will be explained.

The presented optical measurement technology will be substantiated by practical examples from early bioprocess development such as clone screening, media optimization and scale up to laboratory fermenters.


See more of New fermentation technologies: Focus on disposable fermentors, disposable single-use-sensors and single-use-disposable downstream processing for closed systems Part II
See more of Invited Oral Papers

See more of RAFT VIII (November 8 - 11, 2009)