In the past decade, single-use automated micro bioreactors have been widely adopted in biopharma facilities for scaling-down mammalian and microbial cell processes for production of biologics. Using these types of small-scale bioreactors has been proven to significantly increase speed and throughput of cell line and process development4 with results that are more reproducible than using shake flasks as scale down models. Whilst the use of automated scale-down bioreactors does increase throughput in clone or strain screening, as well as testing of culture conditions and process parameters, it also leads to a rise in the number of samples that need to be taken and analyzed. Key assays typically run by bioprocess scientists include: off-line pH checks, viable cell density (VCD), viability, and metabolites including glucose, lactate, glutamine, and glutamate. These measurements can be used for process control and monitoring, to calculate feed additions and determine optimum time for harvest. Currently, Sartorius Stedim Biotech estimates that from the hundreds of ambr 15 automated microscale bioreactor systems installed, over four million samples are generated globally every day and Figure 1 highlights areas where manual operations have traditionally caused bottlenecks in the overall workflow when running these assays.
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