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About Cellution CELLution Biotech BV is developing technologies and designing tools for application in single-use bioreactor systems. Applications are to be found both in cell cultures and microbial fermentations as well as in R&D and (GMP) Production. Technologies (IP) developed are resulting in high quality bioprocesses and aimed to improve biopharmaceutical processes: the performance, the yield, the costs. How this started Nico Oosterhuis, the founding father of CELLution Biotech, is a bioprocess engineer and scientist. His thesis at the University of Delft (SCALE-UP OF BIOREACTORS; a scale-down approach) became a very important work and is cited by many other bioprocess engineers. Since the early eighties, Nico always was involved in projects in which bioreactors played an important role. Early 2000 the wave-type single-use bioreactors were accepted for application in cell cultures, however by far these systems could not be compared with stirred tank reactors and in particular not regarding the performance. Single-use bioreactors offered reduction in cost and reduction of risk (cross contamination) and therefore became more important during the early years of this decennium. Designing a plastic copy of the stirred tank reactor is possible, however there still are many obsticals, like the agitation system, that increases the price of a single-use stirred bioreactor to an unacceptable level. On top that, it seemed that the plastic pillow shaped bag was accepted by the market for cell cultures. However the limitations of the wave-type bioreactors remained: poor mixing and poor mass transfer and therefore only applicable with cell cultures. Even with cell cultures it was and is not possible to support high cell densitities. Microbial fermentations were almost out of the question. But what actually is needed for an optimal performing bioprocess? Of course with experience and expertise as built up over the last 25 years, it was clear to Nico that the physiological stage of the cell and microbial organism as well as the micro-environment are essential in a bioprocess. This means: it’s all about mixing and mass transfer. Mass transfer is influenced by wavelength, shaking speed and shaking angle. Discovered was that also the horizontal displacement has a significant effect on the mass transfer capacity. These parameters are the basis for the design of the CELL-tainer. By keeping the mass transfer characteristics as well as the fluid flow forces constant when scaling-up, the micro-environment of the cell will be kept uniform, thus making it easy to predict large scale behavior of the cells from small scale experiments. As a result of the theoretical and practical studies, the patented two-dimensional movement came to live! With the input of highly respected biopharma industries the CELL-tainer was born and brought from prototype to what it is today: a high performance single-use bioreactor system for multiple application. |
