(344f) Process Engineering for Cellular Agriculture

Biomanufacturing provides an alternative to conventional industrial processes and their associated limitations and environmental impacts. Bioproducts are already a crucial part of the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. Innovative therapies using proteins, antibodies, hormone, enzymes, whole cells and other biological products have brought new treatments to conditions as varied as cancer, arthritis and diabetes. These are usually produced through mammalian cell cultivation and expression in single-use reactors and have high cost resulting in barriers to access. Reducing biomanufacturing costs will increase access to these therapies and enable the bioeconomy across industries, particularly those that are the most sensitive to high sales prices.

The latest analyses indicate that cell culture media is the crucial input to reduce costs. Cell culture media is the solution that provides mammalian cells with water, nutrients, hormones and a favorable pH environment for growth and/or expression. The lifetime of cell culture media is limited by nutrient availability and waste accumulation. Replenishing individual components is uncommon due to (a) challenging and labor-intensive processes to monitor nutrient concentrations; (b) accumulation of metabolic byproducts over time; and (c) stringent regulations in the pharmaceutical industry, in which much of the biomanufacturing development has been focused on.

Previous work has demonstrated that algae (Chlorella sorokiniana) can remove ammonia, a by-product of cell culture. This reconditioned media can be used for further cell culture. In this work, a combined process with cell culture, media reconditioning and supplementation was developed. The reconditioned media and its impact on cell health and morphology was characterized. A continuous process is being developed for further scalability.

The growth rates of Quail Muscle Cells (QM7s) were lower with reconditioned media than fresh growth media. Nutrients that were limiting were identified and supplemented (primarily glucose), which recovered growth rates. This work demonstrates the potential of more sustainable biomanufacturing and can increase the applications and access of bioproducts.