GEA Bioreactor for Cell Culture

Based on a stirred tank reactor approach, the Bioreactor for Cell Culture has been developed to let you unlock the benefits of fed-batch and continuous cultivation, allowing you to grow engineered animal and other non-adherent eukaryotic cell types, as well as create hybrid products, at commercial scale. 

Importantly, our portfolio of bioreactor technology isn’t just an adaptation of units designed for pharma or traditional biotech applications. We’ve focused on developing fully regulatory compliant solutions that will let you unlock a multitude of opportunities in the exciting sector of “new foods,” including cultivated meats and fats.

To do this we’ve had a rethink on the design of bioreactors. Rather than expect you to adapt cells to a fixed bioreactor design, we’ve focused on cell requirements, such as oxygen transfer, and temperature, and factors such as their shear sensitivity, to really understand what is needed in a bioreactor design and its function. We’ve done this with our Virtual Bioreactor Testing technology.

GEA virtual bioreactor testing is possible thanks to an advanced digital twin simulation tool that allows us to open up designs and understand what is happening within the system. Using our technology we can derive, from known physical tests, important data on shear forces, optimum temperature, oxygen transfer rates, and other key criteria. With this knowledge we’ll work with you to fine tune the physical setup of your bioreactor as well as the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to your cells, to maximize yield and efficiency. Ultimately, the results from detailed testing and validation can help you to generate proof of concept, demonstrate scale up - from lab scale, to pilot and then industrial volumes - as well as evaluate new cell strains and help you to innovate and generate new product types.

The challenges of working with mammalian cells

Shear forces, CO2 and unwanted cell products

Cultured mammalian cells are especially sensitive to damage by the shear force generated in the bioreactor. That said, different mammalian cell types will be affected to different degrees. Where embryotic cells are very fragile and easily damaged by such shear forces, meat cells tend to be more robust and under some circumstances even benefit from shear. To get the best bioreactor fit for your application we use our virtual testing techniques to simulate where in the system the largest shear forces occur, and adjust the design accordingly.  Cell growth and performance may also be affected by factors such as bubble break up, and by gradients, especially by dissolved gases in the media. To compensate for this the bioreactor is supplied by default with multiple gas connections so you can be confident of getting the right profile for generating reproducible, accurate levels of both O2 and CO2. We can in addition configure the bioreactor system with perfusion technology to remove inhibiting products, and potentially couple the setup with recovery systems that can effectively reduce operating expenses by reducing waste. 

Designed for production

Importantly, the bioreactor is fully automated, with valve feedback alerting operators to any valve or system failure, sterile barriers to media and harvest lines that allow for efficient production 24/7. Our GEA Codex® process control platform helps to ensure stability and safety during day-to-day operation, offering strong recipe control as well as reducing manual labor so there’s less risk of both human error or contamination. You can expect higher process repeatability and reliability, and reduced downtime. The combination of automation and monitoring also helps to reduce waste and the use of resources and media.

Test facilities for new food applications

Partner with GEA on your new food journey, and you won’t just get state-of-the-art bioreactor equipment. We like to start with a basic design study to go through your process, what you do today, and evaluate the process with you to make sure that your new facility will fit together with equipment up and downstream of the bioreactors. 

At our New Food Application and Technology Center of Excellence (ATC) you can evaluate our equipment, work with our experts to carry out physical and computational testing, and access all of our process, engineering and cell culture/fermentation knowhow spanning multiple industries, from dairy, to brewery and pharma. 

So, wherever you are on your journey, let us work with you to evaluate your needs and match our bioreactor system to your cells and end products.