The importance of cell physiology to the performance of animal cell bioreactors.

This report has pointed out the following: (1) the new animal cell products that will be produced commercially will have large dollar markets and will, together with cost containment and competitive pressures, place a greater emphasis on the reduction of the cost of production through the selection of appropriate culture technology; (2) the benefits to be gained by working with basic biological processes in animal cell culture that will increase cell density, cell productivity, and product quality; (3) the need to work with reactor technologies that can affect the basic biology of the cell in these positive ways; (4) it appears worthwhile to explore immobilized, high cell density culture technologies as a possible means to achieve the objectives by affecting the basic regulation of the cell through fundamental cell/cell environment biological processes.