Project Details
Projekt
Parallel bioreactor system
Subject Area
Medicine
Term
Funded in 2025
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 550419833
The functional characterisation of the physiology of bacteria as well as the development of biotechnological fermentation processes for the targeted production of proteins or secondary metabolites requires standardised cultivation conditions that ensure defined environmental and process conditions. This cannot be realised with conventional shake flask experiments. One of the disadvantages of the easy-to-handle incubation experiments in shake flasks is that they do not allow controlled oxygen input or pH stabilisation. Furthermore, continuous substrate-limited growth conditions or controlled feeding experiments are very difficult to simulate in shake flask experiments. Time-resolved shifts in the physiology of bacteria, e.g. triggered by substrate-induced diauxia, cannot be adequately recorded in shake flask experiments. Physiologically standardised experiments in parallel bioreactor systems are of great experimental advantage as they enable defined cultivation conditions. For example, cultivations with microaerophilic or nitrogen-fixing bacteria require defined oxygen control or controlled mixed gas supply and exhaust gas analysis. Such parallel cultivation systems also allow substrate-controlled or substrate-limited growth experiments either in fed-batch mode or as a chemostat culture. Furthermore, such bioreactor systems enable the standardised enrichment and isolation of microbial secondary metabolites. The extraction of sufficient volumes of these bioactive metabolites or of enzymes for their characterisation or application tests can also be carried out in such systems in a controlled and more effective manner. Finally, parallel bioreactor systems are required in order to be able to investigate and optimise industry-related microbial fermentation processes. Such research and development approaches are being pursued in the respective working groups of the applicants. Parallel bioreactor systems with a working volume of 500 mL to 1 L and at least four culture vessels are required for such experiments. Such a system is applied for here. It allows the comparative investigation of biological replicates under two defined cultivation conditions or fermentation strategies. The requested parallel bioreactor system with a maximum working volume of 1 L should enable standard measurements of pH and pO2, mixed gas supply and waste gas analysis. The networking of the four bioreactors is to be secured via software that is as web-accessible as possible and suitable for integrated data acquisition, control and monitoring of the bioprocesses. Feeding strategies for fed-batch cultivation and continuous chemostat experiments are to be secured by means of preset protocols.
DFG Programme
Major Research Instrumentation
Major Instrumentation
Paralleles Bioreaktorsystem
Instrumentation Group
3520 Bakterien-Zuchtgeräte, Fermenter
Applicant Institution
Universität Greifswald
