Italian researchers evaluated and compared the performance of a novel bioreactor configuration with a traditional stirred-tank system. The results of the study demonstrate that the innovative bioreactor significantly outperforms the traditional stirred-tank system.
Researchers from the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) evaluated the performance of a novel design bioreactor. In the innovative prototype bioreactor the high-speed impeller of a conventional stirred-tank was replaced by a slowly rotating drum.
They compared its performance with that of a traditional stirred-tank bioreactor using a CHO cell line producing a monoclonal antibody (mAb). The rotating drum increases the liquid surface exposed to the headspace, enabling a higher oxygen transfer at low rotational speeds compared to the conventional system operating at higher speed. In fed-batch cultures, the new bioreactor delivered higher viable cell densities, improved cell viability, and monoclonal antibody production almost doubled in the stirred-tank reactor. The researchers attribute these gains primarily to prolonged cell survival, likely resulting from the lower hydrodynamic stress generated by the slow-rotating drum.
Further investigation needed
Despite the encouraging results, the authors stress that the work was performed at laboratory scale and that industrial relevance has yet to be demonstrated. Product quality attributes such as glycosylation, aggregation, fragmentation, and host cell protein levels were not evaluated and will require further investigation before the technology can be considered for large-scale biomanufacturing.
The researchers conclude that the innovative bioreactor could become a promising alternative to conventional stirred-tank systems for mammalian cell culture, provided future studies confirm its scalability and ability to maintain critical product quality attributes.