The special interest of the Fermentation Platform is the optimisation of the cultivation of microorganisms and cell cultures as well as biocatalytic reactions in a broad spectrum of bioreactor systems and setups. Especially the scale up of those processes from a laboratory to a production scale is a goal.

History

The Fermentation platform in particular combines the knowledge and more than 20 years experience of the chairs of Cell Culture Technology and Fermentation Engineering of the Faculty of Technology of Bielefeld University. The technical infrastructure has consequently been complemented and updated and currently hosts more than 30 bioreactors from different manufacturers and scales (up to 300L for microbial cultivations and up to 100L for mammalian cells).

Profile

Cultivation of microbial and cell cultures as well as enzymatic reactions have been operated in a semi-pilot plant scale using a broad spectrum of organisms (e.g. Bacillus sp., CHO and human cell cultures, Dictyostelium discoideum, Escherichia coli, Euglena gracilis, Streptomyces sp., yeast sp., and different kinds of microalgae) and enzymes. Operating strategies as well as cultivation or reaction conditions, respectively, have been used and optimized in order to obtain maximal concentrations of products like pharmaceuticals, recombinant proteins, plasmid DNA, essential nutrients or polysaccharides. Wherever applicable the combination of fermentation processes with first product recovery steps in particular by integrated processes is in the focus of our interest.