Project: Systematic consideration of inhomogeneity at the large scale: towards a stringent development of industrial bioprocesses
The project aims to systematically elucidate the influence of increasing bioreactor inhomogeneity which occurs in industrial-scale bioreactor, with respect to microbial physiology and production performance of Corynebacterium glutamicum, a microorganism with broad industrial applications. Early consideration of inhomogeneity issues during lab scale process development will facilitate the selection of the most potent production strain, accelerate the upscaling process and improve the performance at production scale. Such inhomogeneous conditions can be mimicked at lab scale by a so called scale-down simulator bioreactor, consisting of a well-mixed stirred tank reactor (STR) and a plug-flow reactor (PFR) connected in series to it. During operation the cultivation volume is continuously pumped from the STR through the PFR simulating zones of inhomogeneity known to be present at the large scale. This central challenge of inhomogeneity is addressed, for the first time, by an effort bridging both, the cellular and the process level, enabled by scale-down simulator bioreactor technology, innovative process analytical technology, multi-omics analysis and genetic engineering. General objectives of the project scale-down simulator bioreactor studies for lab scale analysis of bioreactor inhomogeneity using process and multi-omics data development of novel tools for advanced bioprocess characterization and analytics engineering of microbial systems with improved robustness to bioreactor inhomogeneity evaluation of bioreactor inhomogeneity by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and linkage with metabolic network models Expected results knowledge about influence of inhomogeneous conditions on metabolic regulation, stress patterns and omics data and methods for improved scale-up integration of novel in-situ optical sensor technology to study morphology and physiology aspects framework for application of flow-following mobile sensors (sensor pill) in bioreactors and concepts for the harvesting and data collection procedures novel robust strains which are less sensitive to inhomogeneous conditions at larger scale for more effective processes and accelerated upscaling prediction of large scale process performance by linking CFD with metabolic network modeling and process data Exploitation Results and inventions will be translated into innovation and will attract attention from industry and the scientific community. Knowledge will be patented/licensed and proper dissemination of results will be achieved by high-quality peer-reviewed publications, presentation at conferences and industrial meetings. The project has the potential to lead to highly innovative industrial applications and to improve the competitiveness of European companies in the bioprocessing sector.
| Acronym | SCILS |
| Website | visit project website |
| Network | ERA-ARD II |
| Call | Call 2012 |
Project partner
| Number | Name | Role | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instituto de Biotecnología de León | Spain | ||
| Jülich Research Centre | Coordinator | Germany | |
| Loughborough University - Department of Chemical Engineering | United Kingdom | ||
| Sequip S+E GmbH | Germany | ||
| SINTEF Materials and Chemistry | Norway | ||
| Technical University Berlin | Germany | ||
| Vitalys | Denmark |