Enhanced process insights in shake flask cultivations

While sophisticated small-scale cultivation systems came to the market in the last few years, shake flasks maintain the economic alternative widely used in industry and academia. Yet, these vessels lack the sensors like turbidity, oxygen concentration and pH-values. Here we show how to overcome these hurdles. The first part covers measurement improvements for shake flasks with focus on back-scattered light for biomass growth monitoring and the utilization of sensor spots for a deeper insight into the “black box” shake flasks. We used plant cells as their growth often can’t be accurately monitored by simple offline OD measurements. The sensor spot measurements are further used to detect process events, enabling the prediction of metabolite depletion. In the second part, soft sensors based on engineering and biological characterizations of these vessels are introduced and explained, enabling researchers to predict process values and estimate growth curves