Applications such as industrial bioprocess development, personalized therapies and Design of Experiments (DoE) require high-throughput and the capacity for high cell density growth under controlled conditions. The landscape of devices used for lab cultivations include bench-scale reactors, shake flasks, and microtiter plates. These technologies are not amenable to high-throughput and are therefore impractical for bioprocess optimization and screening for variation in patient-derived starting materials. Microbioreactor technology presents the opportunity to develop disposable and miniature versions of bench-scale reactors, while maintaining a small footprint in clean rooms. Mixing is notoriously a challenge in small volume systems and microbioreactor technology has been limited by the inability to achieve predictive scale-up in mammalian cell culture. Here, Redbud Labs proposes a microplate reactor that uses our novel microfluidic mixer, MXR, as an integrated impeller. Our goal is to optimize oxygen mass transfer (kLa) for predictive scale-up to larger reactors. If successful, our single-use microplate system will enable rapid and high-throughput raw material screening and improve bioprocesses development.
The availability of high-throughput microplate bioreactor will revolutionize bioprocess development and enable rapid and inexpensive raw material screening for cell-based therapies. Redbud Labs will use our microfluidic mixer, MXR, as an impeller to optimize oxygen mass transfer and cell growth.
