Large scale animal cell cultivation for production of cellular biologicals

Through the developments in molecular biology the interest for large scale animal cell cultivation has sharply increased during the last 5 years. At our laboratory, four different cultivation systems were studied, all of which are homogeneous culture systems, as they lend themselves best for scaling up and for the control of culture conditions. The four different systems which were compared are: batch culture, continuous chemostat, continuous recycling and continuous perfusion culture system, both for cells growing in suspension and for anchorage dependent cells in microcarrier culture. Our results indicate that for the production of virus vaccines and cells the batch and recycling culture system are most suitable. Disadvantages of the continued chemostat culture system are: the system is only applicable for cells growing in suspension; relatively low concentrations of cells and cellular products are obtained. The continuous perfusion system appears to be very suitable for the production of cellular components and also for the production of viruses which do not give cell lysis.