The vessel is designed with a large pitched blade impeller and has a working volume of 100-250mL to provide an environment for mixing without sedimentation. Sartorius says this design enables optimal growth of single cell suspensions, cell aggregates or adherent cells on microcarriers.
Ian Ransome, head of product management and ambr multi-parallel systems at Sartorius, told us, “As cell and gene therapies evolve, and more clones and processes are created, different challenges are emerging, and the new vessels with the single impeller and no baffles offer a different environment for the culture of cells.”
He explained that the new vessel fits the evolution of cell and gene therapies, as it develops processes like adherent cell growth on microcarriers, T-cell culture, and process development for viral vector production.
According to Sartorius, the mini bioreactor has shown better cell culture performance in trials compared to a less predictive spinner or T-flask, enabling rapid process optimization and improved scalability.
Ransome explained that, as clinical demand rises, the need to scale up rather than scale out of particular process nodes will increase.
“In this context, applications such as viral vector production are increasingly shifting from adherent cell culture formats to the suspension format, which is very well catered for by scalable upstream production systems,” he said.
“Development tools such as ambr are playing their part in this transition, allowing teams to swiftly identify optimum conditions for suspension culture and adherent cultivation on microcarriers.”
