Implementation of a Fully Automated Microbial Cultivation Platform for Strain and Process Screening

Area of Science:

• Biotechnology
• Bioprocess Engineering
• Microbial Cultivation

Background:

• Advances in molecular biotechnology yield numerous production strains.
• Screening strains under various conditions multiplies cultivation possibilities.
• Current platforms lack full automation for microbial fed-batch processes, including sampling and data handling.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a fully automated cultivation platform for high-throughput, early-stage microbial bioprocess development.
• To increase throughput and flexibility in bioprocess screening protocols.
• To address the limitations of existing commercially available automated cultivation systems.

Main Methods:

• Integration of a commercial microbioreactor system with a laboratory robot.
• Implementation of custom hardware and software modifications.
• Development of automated milliliter-scale microbial fed-batch cultivation, at-line sampling, off-line sample storage, and data handling.

Main Results:

• Successful implementation of a fully automated cultivation platform.
• Demonstration of automated milliliter-scale microbial fed-batch cultivation and sample handling.
• Validation of the platform's performance through comparison with 5 L scale benchmark cultivations, yielding identical rankings.

Conclusions:

• The developed automated platform significantly accelerates the identification of optimal expression systems and process conditions.
• This system offers potential for automated early-stage bioprocess development.
• Automated centralized data storage is a key feature for efficient bioprocess optimization.