Bioprocess Development

Traditional methods of screening and process development often have limitations. These include the inability of lab scale methods to be predictive of performance on a larger scale, throughput, and the amount of information.

The BioLector is an advanced tool for all of these reasons. With the geometry of the FlowerPlate and the shaking capabilities of the microbioreactor, a broad range of defined oxygen transfer rates can be achieved, permitting easy scalability to bench, pilot, and production scales.

While bench scale fermenters can produce a large amount of bioprocess information, throughput and the runnable number of fermentations at once are limited. Using methods like shake flasks can increase throughput; however, little information can be collected. Also, cultivations must be paused for sampling, which can negatively affect gas transfer and culture performance.

The BioLector can run 48 fermentations in parallel, while measuring up to six parameters at the same time, including biomass, pH, dissolved oxygen, and fluorescences, such as proteins or dyes. While measuring, the plate continues to shake, in order to avoid any pause in gas transfer to the culture. Time between measurements is very short, 20 minutes at the most, allowing for small inflections in the biomass profile, which may indicate metabolic changes, to be observed.

With the BioLector, all biological and bioprocess parameters can be optimized exclusively at microtiter plate scale and show perfect, scalable results to 1 L and 20 L stirred tank bioreactor scale. 

 

Application Example

Scalability as a prerequisite for bioprocess development at µ-scale

Source: Rohe et al. (2012) Microb. Cell Fact. 11:144