Whooping Cough Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Whooping Cough, including details on symptoms, treatment, vaccines, causes, outbreaks.

Scaling-up vaccine production: implementation aspects of a biomass growth observer and controller.

Soons ZI, van den Ijssel J, van der Pol LA, van Straten G, van Boxtel AJ

Systems and Control Group, Wageningen University, P. O. Box 17, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands, zita.soons@gmail.com.

This study considers two aspects of the implementation of a biomass growth observer and specific growth rate controller in scale-up from small- to pilot-scale bioreactors towards a feasible bulk production process for whole-cell vaccine against whooping cough. The first is the calculation of the oxygen uptake rate, the starting point for online monitoring and control of biomass growth, taking into account the dynamics in the gas-phase. Mixing effects and delays are caused by amongst others the headspace and tubing to the analyzer. These gas phase dynamics are modelled using knowledge of the system in order to reconstruct oxygen consumption. The second aspect is to evaluate performance of the monitoring and control system with the required modifications of the oxygen consumption calculation on pilot-scale. In pilot-scale fed-batch cultivation good monitoring and control performance is obtained enabling a doubled concentration of bulk vaccine compared to standard batch production.

Published 31 July 2008 in Bioprocess Biosyst Eng.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Whooping Cough Research Today. All Rights Reserved.