Optimisation under uncertainty for a bioreactor that produces red blood cells

Recent work developed a novel, biomimetic, cost effective 3D hollow fibre bioreactor for growing healthy red blood cells ex vivo [4]. This bioreactor recapitulates the architectural and functional properties of erythrocyte formation and thereby reduces the need for expensive growth factors by more than an order of magnitude. But the optimal bioreactor design is unclear; we propose global, robust, superstructure optimisation for configuring and operating the bioreactor. We discuss the potential of robust superstructure design not only on this individual bioreactor but also more generally on bioprocess optimisation..