Wynne Eric, Yoon Junghyo, Park Dohyun, Cui Mingyang, Morris Caitlin, Lee Jaeweon, Wang Zhao, Yoon Seongkyu, Han Jongyoon
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, College of Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Biotechnol Bioeng. 2025 Feb;122(2):373-381. doi: 10.1002/bit.28888. Epub 2024 Nov 18.
In modern bioprocessing, cell culture media is one of the most significant cost drivers, yet the nutrients and other critical factors in the media are often not fully utilized. With the renewed emphasis on reducing the cost of bioprocessing, there is much interest in reducing the overall use of cell culture media. In this work, we introduce a mesoscale microfluidic separation device based on the ion concentration polarization (ICP) process to regenerate the spent media for reuse by removing critical waste products from the cell culture that are known to inhibit the growth of the cells. We demonstrated that up to 75% of spent culture media can be regenerated and reused without affecting the cell viability. A detailed analysis of the materials consumed during antibody production indicated that one could improve the water process mass intensity by up to 33% by regenerating and recycling the media. Given that ICP separation systems have already been scaled up to support large-volume processing, it would be feasible to deploy this technology for manufacturing scale bioreactors (e.g., 50 L perfusion culture of CHO cells), reducing the overall operation cost and water use.
在现代生物加工过程中，细胞培养基是最重要的成本驱动因素之一，然而培养基中的营养物质和其他关键因素往往未得到充分利用。随着人们重新强调降低生物加工成本，减少细胞培养基的总体使用量备受关注。在这项工作中，我们引入了一种基于离子浓度极化（ICP）过程的中尺度微流控分离装置，通过去除细胞培养中已知会抑制细胞生长的关键废物来再生用过的培养基以供再利用。我们证明，高达75%的用过的培养基可以再生并再利用，而不会影响细胞活力。对抗体生产过程中消耗的材料进行的详细分析表明，通过再生和循环利用培养基，水工艺质量强度可提高多达33%。鉴于ICP分离系统已经扩大规模以支持大规模加工，将该技术应用于生产规模的生物反应器（例如50升中国仓鼠卵巢细胞灌注培养）是可行的，这将降低总体运营成本和用水量。
