TWB and Hamilton launch microbial culture robot

July 3, 2015 |

In France, TWB and Hamilton have launched a new bioprocessing platform with 24 integrated mini-bioreactors (50 mL), that will  significantly speed up the process to develop industrial bioprocess solutions for a wide range of applications in green chemistry, including chemicals, enzymes, biopolymers, biofuels. The technology features in-depth characterization and culture optimization of microorganisms.

The value of having this automation is to carry out Design of Experiments with a controlled culture environment allowing to access to optimal medium composition or strain construction based on relevant criteria like productivity or conversion yield in a minimum time. The Hamilton workstation automates the media fill, inoculation, sampling and sample processing.

The conditions in the mini-fermenters are very close to the conditions in the bigger fermenters. This allows TWB to work close to stirred tank reactors conditions. In addition, all fermenters are independent from each other which allows combinations of environment parameters in Design of Experiments. Samples are regularly taken online and are immediately frozen on deck. This ensures maximum sample integrity for analysis. The robotic culture system is like an automated multiplex fermenter which keeps throughput advantage of microplate screening and information quality of standard stirred tank reactors

The workstation allows accelerating the selection, the performance evaluation and the optimization of microbial cell factory for industrial applications. Different workflows are available such as rapid screening and characterization of strains coming from industrial libraries or optimization of environment conditions by design of experiment in several weeks instead of several months.

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Category: Fuels

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