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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

The Use of Chemostats in Microbial Systems Biology
Published on: October 14, 2013
Feedback control for chemostat models
Patrick De Leenheer1, Hal Smith
1Arizona State University, Department of Mathematics, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA. leenheer@math.la.asu.edu
Abstract:
It is shown that a chemostat with two organisms can be made coexistent by means of feedback control of the dilution rate. Remaining freedom in the feedback law can be used to guarantee robustness or improve particular performance indices. Unfortunately a topological property prevents coexistence by feedback control for chemostats with more than two organisms. We apply our results to control bioreactors aimed at producing commercial products through genetically altered organisms. In all our results the coexistence takes its simplest form: a global asymptotically stable equilibrium point in the interior of the non-negative orthant.
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