Enhanced wave bioreactor design for highly aerobic fermentation processes

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Bioreactors are devices used in bioprocesses to produce a variety of valuable biological products such as pharmaceuticals, food ingredients, biodegradable plastic materials and clean transportation fuels. There are many types of bioreactors. A few years ago, a new type of bioreactor design was introduced for the production of therapeutics derived from animal-cell cultures. The required aeration for these cultures is obtained by creating waves at the surfaces of the culture by a rocking motion of it placed in a plastic bag. These so-called “wave bioreactors” are cost-effective compared to the traditional ones based on mechanically-stirred steel-tank devices for those applications. However their applications are limited to cases for low levels of aeration-mixing. One of the objectives of this research is to modify the generic wave bioreactor design to allow its use in microbial fermentation processes which require higher aeration-mixing capabilities. The generic design will be enhanced with a supplementary aerator in the rocking bag, then compared with the generic design and the traditional stirred tank design for its bioprocessing enhancement. The aeration-mixing criteria will be established in engineering correlations for various operating conditions. The design characterization would be followed by proof-of-concept studies on two highly aerobic fermentation processes of commercial interest in production of: (a) hyaluronic acid, a commercial product used in medical applications, with our new genetically modified microorganism and (b) a recombinant protein product (hCD83ext) recently developed by us, as a new potential therapeutic for prevention organ-transplant rejection. These fermentation processes would test a range of bioprocessing capabilities of the enhanced bioreactor design compared to the other two designs. In the short term, the better understanding of the engineering performance of the new enhanced wave bioreactor design should lead to a significant extended capability of wave bioreactors to various bioprocessing opportunities. In a long term, we intend to demonstrate the efficient handling of highly-aerobic fermentations for new manufacturing enterprises exemplified in case studies. Spin-off enterprises should lead to the reduction of healthcare costs. The concurrent training of students would ensure efficient technology transfer to the market place. Their acquired multidisciplinary knowledge would help in the growing bio-manufacturing needs in Canada and elsewhere.