Deadline: 2020-02-22 Award: $10,000 Open to: Everyone*
The generation of high cell density mammalian cell cultures provides a strategy to intensify the process and increase yields of expressed biotherapeutics such as proteins or monoclonal antibodies. This is applied in traditional fed batch approach by continuously feeding media nutrients while biomass levels accumulate. Alternatively in a perfusion system, the media is fed continuously, to maintain a steady state of high cell density while the product (e.g. protein) is continually removed. The Seeker is looking to achieve high cell density at 200 million cells /mL, significantly above the current technology approaches, (50-100 million cells/mL). This is an aggressive target given the challenging issues of existing cell retention devices that can include filter fouling, product sieving and bulk mixing / oxygen transfer issues in the bioreactor.