Course description
Bioreactors in Biotech: Strategies for Selection and Optimization
Bioreactors, what are they and how do they work?
Bioreactors are the pillars of bioprocessing, supporting the production of the biomass and the therapeutic product. It is vital that those responsible for operating bioreactors understand the intricacies of their functionality to ensure they can optimize their performance and maximize the bioprocess efficiency.
Over two weeks, this course will explore functionality, including the inoculum expansion process and designing control loops, as well as consider strategies to select the best bioreactor for your product.
In an interactive environment, you will also learn best practices for avoiding contamination, and characterise your raw materials to ensure a sterile operation throughout.
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Suitability - Who should attend?
This course is relevant to both professionals working within biopharmaceutical manufacturing as well as those who will be specifically working with bioreactors. It is also applicable to the wider biotechnology audience if they interact with bioreactors in their role. Relevant departments may include:
- Upstream Processing
- Downstream Processing
- Bioreactor Maintenance
- Cleaning
- Quality Control
- Process Analytics
- Process Engineering
Outcome / Qualification etc.
- Explore the different bioreactor types, and understand how to pick the correct one for your product
- Understand the importance of Cleaning in Place, Steam in Place and conducting raw material risk assessments for ensuring your product does not become contaminated
- Examine factors which influence the bioreactor type, including microorganism, shear stress and yield
- Brainstorm common challenges associated with scale-up and scale-out, and learn best practices to ensure success
- Familiarise yourself with bioreactor functionality, and learn how control loops are designed specifically to support the organism
- Understand the pros and cons of single-use bioreactors and establish if these are beneficial for your organization
Training Course Content
Session 1
Overview of Bioreactors within biotechnology
- Introduction to the course
- Overview of bioreactor use in biotechnology
- White biotechnology-industrial products
- Red biotechnology-medicinal products (main focus of course)
- Green-biotechnology- food and agriculture-based products
Overview of modern molecular biology
- Recombinant DNA technology, gene sequencing, PCR, CRISPR
Introduction to biotherapeutics
- Antibiotics, therapeutic proteins, monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, heparin, gene therapy, cell therapies, nucleic acid therapeutics
Session 2
Biotransformations and host cell organisms
- Enzymatic transformations, bacteria for recombinant protein production, metabolic engineering of bacteria for the production of small molecules, yeast and other fungi, mammalian cells, insect cells
- Culture media and feeds
Case study/project 1-evaluate the different potential COVID-19 vaccine types, identify how they would be manufactured
Session3
Engineering considerations in bioprocessing
- Kinetics, thermodynamics and transport phenomena (heat and mass transfer, mixing, shear)
Session4
Bioreactor components and types
- Stirred tank bioreactors
- Impellor design, sparging, heating and cooling
- Airlift bioreactors
- Cell retention devices-filters, acoustic waves, inclined settlers
- Roller bottles
- Micro-carrier/fibrous disk reactors
- Hollow fiber bioreactors
- Wicking matrix bioreactor
Culture modes
- Batch culture
- Fed batch culture
- Perfusion culture
- Expansion (seed) train
- Continuous culture/continuous biomanufacturing
Session5
Process measurement and control
- Examine the following parameters to monitor and control in your bioreactor
- Dissolved oxygen
- pH
- Temperature
- Probe insertion techniques
- Biomass
- Raman and other spectroscopic techniques
- Offline measurements
- Osmolarity, inhibitory metabolites
- Control loops
- CO2 sweeping
- Feed rates, bleed/recycle rates in perfusion culture
Case study 2-process deviation
Session6
Single use bioreactors (SUB)
- Types of SUBS-rocking bags, stirred tanks, small rigid bioreactors
- SUB manufacturers
- Advantages and disadvantages of stainless steel vs. disposables
Scale-up
- Examine strategies to prepare for bioreactor scale-up
- Scale-up considerations, power, mixing, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations
- Scale-out
- Scale-down models
- High throughput parallel reactors
- Lab-on-a –chip models
Case study 1 follow-up: consider how difficult it would be to scale-up each of the potential COVID-19 vaccine types
Session7
Sterilization and cleaning
- Overview of sterilization principles to avoid contamination
- Heat sterilization
- Gas filtration
- Liquids filtration
- Examine the potential for raw materials viral contamination
- Sterilization in place (SIP)
- Cleaning in place (CIP)
- Sterile connections- tubing welding, flanged fittings
Why choose PTI
On average, delegates of their online academies said:
Quality of content:
4/5
85% had applied content during the course to their role
Delivery rating:
4/5