HARVEST SYSTEM FOR LARGE-SCALE MICROBIAL PRODUCTION

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I am seeking funds on behalf of 14 investigators to acquire an improved microbial harvest system for the Fermentation Facility at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The proposed system consists of: a continuous-flow centrifuge, cooling equipment, and a containment chamber. The Fermentation Facility at UAB makes available to investigators the capacity for the large-scale production of microbial products. The Facility consists of fermentors (16L, 28L and 500L capacity), harvest equipment (membrane filtration and continuous flow centrifuge), and cell breaking equipment, all housed in a building of 1,600 sq. ft. Generally the investigators use the appropriate equipment to produce their desired product under the supervision of the Facility personnel. In the three years of its operation there have been an average of 2.3 grows per week in the Facility. The currently available harvest equipment has limited capacity to process adequately the culture medium for all of the 14 investigators and 48 projects listed herein. It is either not sufficiently dependable (membrane filtration), too slow to achieve a reasonable yield of unstable components (centrifugation or membrane filtration), or associated with insufficient containment to permit comfortable harvest of the appropriate recombinant organisms and pathogens. It is expected that the proposed equipment will virtually eliminate the limitations of the present equipment, and it is projected, based on the current use rate, that the investigators in this proposal will account for 90% of the use of the proposed equipment.