| Project Description: Plant
cells in liquid suspension culture can make valuable pharmaceutical compounds
through a variety of biosynthetic pathways.
Usually, significant levels of secondary metabolites are expressed
only at very high cell density near the end of the growth phase. The large-scale cultivation of plant cells in
stirred tank bioreactors at the high cell densities required for secondary
product release is not easy: non-uniform
mixing, shear damage of fragile plant cells, and poor oxygen transfer are
potential barriers to process development.
In our laboratory, we are studying the fundamentals of mixing and
mass transfer in tobacco plant cell culture, focusing on the response of
cell viability and oxygen mass transfer rate to impeller rotation rate. |
