A Cost-effective and Reliable Method to Predict Mechanical Stress in Single-use and Standard Pumps

Pumps are mainly used when transferring sterile culture broths in biopharmaceutical and biotechnological production processes. However, during the pumping ...

Power Input Measurements in Stirred Bioreactors at Laboratory Scale

The power input in stirred bioreactors is an important scaling-up parameter and can be measured through the torque that acts on the impeller shaft during ...

Zurich University of Applied Sciences

Zurich University of Applied Sciences, School of Life Sciences and Facility Management

Today wave-mixed bag bioreactors are common devices in modern biotechnological processes where simple, safe and flexible production has top priority. Numerous studies that have been published on ex vivo generation of cells, viruses and therapeutic agents during the last 10 years have confirmed their suitability and even superiority to stirred bioreactors made from glass or stainless steel for animal as well as plant cell cultivations. In these studies the wave-mixed bag bioreactors enabled middle to high cell density and adequate productivity in laboratory and pilot scale. This mainly results from low-shear conditions and highly efficient oxygen transfer for cell cultures, as demonstrated for the widely used BioWave((R)).Starting with an overview of wave-mixed bag bioreactors and their common operation strategies, this chapter delineates engineering aspects of BioWave((R)), which like Wave Reactor and BIOSTAT((R))CultiBag RM originates from the prototype of a wave-mixed bag bioreactor introduced in 1998. Subsequently, the second part of the chapter focuses on reported BioWave((R)) applications. Conditions and results from cultivations with animal cells, plant cells, microbial cells and nematodes are presented and discussed.

Bag bioreactor based on wave-induced motion: characteristics and applications.

Disposable bioreactors have increasingly been incorporated into preclinical, clinical, and production-scale biotechnological facilities over the last few years. Driven by market needs, and, in particular, by the developers and manufacturers of drugs, vaccines, and further biologicals, there has been a trend toward the use of disposable seed bioreactors as well as production bioreactors. Numerous studies documenting their advantages in use have contributed to further new developments and have resulted in the availability of a multitude of disposable bioreactor types which differ in power input, design, instrumentation, and scale of the cultivation container. In this review, the term "disposable bioreactor" is defined, the benefits and constraints of disposable bioreactors are discussed, and critical phases and milestones in the development of disposable bioreactors are summarized. An overview of the disposable bioreactors that are currently commercially available is provided, and the domination of wave-mixed, orbitally shaken, and, in particular, stirred disposable bioreactors in animal cell-derived productions at cubic meter scale is reported. The growth of this type of reactor system is attributed to the recent availability of stirred disposable benchtop systems such as the Mobius CellReady 3 L Bioreactor. Analysis of the data from computational fluid dynamic simulation studies and first cultivation runs confirms that this novel bioreactor system is a viable alternative to traditional cell culture bioreactors at benchtop scale.

Disposable bioreactors: the current state-of-the-art and recommended applications in biotechnology.

Innovative mixing principles in bioreactors, for example using the rocking of a platform to induce a backwards and forwards 'wave', or using orbital shaking to generate a 'wave' that runs round in a cylindrical container, have proved to be successful for the suspension cultures of cells, especially when combined with disposable materials. This article presents an overview of the engineering characteristics when these new principles are applied in bioreactors, and case studies covering scales of operation from milliliters to 1000 liters.

Innovative, non-stirred bioreactors in scales from milliliters up to 1000 liters for suspension cultures of cells using disposable bags and containers--a Swiss contribution.

High cell density growth of High Five suspension cells in DO-controlled wave-mixed bioreactors.

Bag-based rapid and safe seed-train expansion method for Trichoplusia ni suspension cells.

Fast Single-Use VLP Vaccine Productions Based on Insect Cells and the Baculovirus Expression Vector System: Influenza as Case Study.

During the past 10 years, single-use bioreactors have been well accepted in modern biopharmaceutical production processes targeting high-value products. Up to now, such processes have mainly been small- or medium-scale mammalian cell culture-based seed inoculum, vaccine or antibody productions. However, recently first attempts have been made to modify existing single-use bioreactors for the cultivation of plant cells and tissue cultures, and microorganisms. This has even led to the development of new single-use bioreactor types. Moreover, due to safety issues it has become clear that single-use bioreactors are the "must have" for expanding human stem cells delivering cell therapeutics, the biopharmaceuticals of the next generation. So it comes as no surprise that numerous different dynamic single-use bioreactor types, which are suitable for a wide range of applications, already dominate the market today. Bioreactor working principles, main applications, and bioengineering data are presented in this review, based on a current overview of greater than milliliter-scale, commercially available, dynamic single-use bioreactors. The focus is on stirred versions, which are omnipresent in R&D and manufacturing, and in particular Sartorius Stedim's BIOSTAT family. Finally, we examine development trends for single-use bioreactors, after discussing proven approaches for fast scaling-up processes.

Dynamic Single-Use Bioreactors Used in Modern Liter- and m(3)- Scale Biotechnological Processes: Engineering Characteristics and Scaling Up.

Disposable bioreactors have been increasingly implemented over the past ten years. This relates to both R & D and commercial manufacture, in particular, in animal cell-based processes. Among the numerous disposable bioreactors which are available today, wave-mixed bag bioreactors and stirred bioreactors are predominant. Whereas wave-mixed bag bioreactors represent the system of choice for inoculum production, stirred systems are often preferred for protein expression. For this reason, the authors present protocols instructing the reader how to use the wave-mixed BIOSTAT CultiBag RM 20 L for inoculum production and the stirred UniVessel SU 2 L for recombinant protein production at benchtop scale. All methods described are based on a Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) suspension cell line expressing the human placental secreted alkaline phosphatase (SEAP).

Disposable bioreactors for inoculum production and protein expression.

Disposable orbitally shaken bioreactors are a promising alternative to stirred or wave agitated systems for mammalian and plant cell cultivation, because they provide a homogeneous and well-defined liquid distribution together with a simple and cost-efficient design. Cultivation conditions in the surface-aerated bioreactors are mainly affected by the size of the volumetric oxygen transfer area (a) and the volumetric power input (P∕VL ) that both result from the liquid distribution during shaking. Since Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)-commonly applied to simulate the liquid distribution in such bioreactors-needs high computing power, this technique is poorly suited to investigate the influence of many different operating conditions in various scales. Thus, the aim of this paper is to introduce a new mathematical model for calculating the values of a and P∕VL for liquids with water-like viscosities. The model equations were derived from the balance of centrifugal and gravitational forces exerted during shaking. A good agreement was found among calculated values for a and P∕VL , CFD simulation values and empirical results. The newly proposed model enables a time efficient way to calculate the oxygen transfer areas and power input for various shaking frequencies, filling volumes and shaking and reactor diameters. All these parameters can be calculated fast and with little computing power.

Time efficient way to calculate oxygen transfer areas and power input in cylindrical disposable shaken bioreactors.

pH value and the concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO) are key parameters to monitor and control cell growth in cultivation studies. Reliable, robust and accurate methods to measure these parameters in cultivation systems in real time guarantee high product yield and quality. This mini-review summarises the current state of the art of pH and DO sensors that are applied to bioprocesses from millilitre to benchtop scale by means of a short introduction on measuring principles and selected applications. Special emphasis is placed on single-use bioreactors, which have been increasingly employed in bioprocess development and production in recent years. Working principles, applications and the particular requirements of sensors in these cultivation systems are given. In such processes, optical sensors for pH and DO are often preferred to electrochemical probes, as they allow semi-invasive measurements and can be miniaturised to micrometre scale or lower. In addition, selected measuring principles of novel sensing technologies for pH and DO are discussed. These include solid-state sensors and miniaturised devices that are not yet commercially available, but show promising characteristics for possible use in bioprocesses in the near future. 

Dieter Eibl

Institute of Biotechnology,
School of Life Sciences and Facility Management,
Institute of Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences and Facility Management

Zurich University of Applied Sciences

A Cost-effective and Reliable Method to Predict Mechanical Stress in Single-use and Standard Pumps

Power Input Measurements in Stirred Bioreactors at Laboratory Scale

Dieter Eibl

.css-o250i3{font-size:18px;font-family:Open Sans,sans-serif;line-height:21.6px;}Institute of Biotechnology,School of Life Sciences and Facility Management,Institute of Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences and Facility Management

Zurich University of Applied Sciences

A Cost-effective and Reliable Method to Predict Mechanical Stress in Single-use and Standard Pumps

Power Input Measurements in Stirred Bioreactors at Laboratory Scale

Institute of Biotechnology,
School of Life Sciences and Facility Management,
Institute of Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences and Facility Management