Bioprocess characterization at the micro-scale: Optical sensor integration in a novel capillary-wave micro-bioreactor

Due to the high demand of new biopharmaceuticals and bioproducts, the development of new cultivation platforms for high-throughput screenings, cell-based assays and bioprocess development is of high interest. Therefore, micro-bioreactors (MBRs) are a promising alternative to conventional cultivation platforms like shake flasks due to their minimal volume, sensor integration and high ability for automatization and parallelization. Especially, MBRs with a volume below 10 µL can reduce the amount of needed testing substances for cell-based assays, which is advantageous mostly for testing new biopharmaceuticals with limited availability. However, characterization of a cell culture in the lower micro-liter scale is challenging due to the limited space and the insufficient volume for sampling and offline analysis. Optical sensors are one suitable possibility to close this gap. Therefore, a novel capillary-wave micro-bioreactor (cwMBR) with a working volume of 7 µL and optical sensors for biomass, glucose, oxygen, pH and fluorescence intensity measurement was developed. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract