An integrated microfluidic chip and a single-cell culture, screening, and export method applying the same are disclosed; the chip includes a base, an inlet flow channel, an outlet flow channel, a plurality of common flow channels and a plurality of functional units, wherein two ends of the common flow channel are connected to the inlet flow channel and the outlet flow channel, respectively, wherein each of the functional units includes a single-cell introduction port, a cell culturing-screening chamber, a cell export chamber, a cell export port, and a drive element, wherein the drive element is used to provide power to liquid to introduce single cells entering the common flow channels into the cell culturing-screening chamber, and after culturing and screening, to export target cell population in the cell culturing-screening chamber through the cell export port.

An inverted conical bioreactor is provided for growing cells or microorganisms. The bioreactor has an internal space and a perforated barrier within the vessel, through which a liquid may flow, where cells or microorganisms cannot pass through the perforated barrier. The perforated barrier divides the internal space of the bioreactor into a first chamber and a second chamber. Cells are grown within the second chamber and can be perfused by re-circulating the liquid, for example a growth medium, through the bioreactor. Various inlet ports and outlet ports allow controlling the parameters of flow of the growth medium.

A single use probe, sterilizable by irradiation, for a single use component for use in a biopharmaceutical process, comprises at least one sensor relevant for the biopharmaceutical process, an RFID tag and a memory rewritable in principle, in which data with respect to an integrity check of the single use probe are stored. A method for quality assurance of such a single use probe comprises: providing the probe with an RFID tag and a memory rewritable in principle, in particular a FeRAM memory as part of the RFID tag; defining a measurement-principle-specific quality parameter of the single use probe; defining a tolerance value for the parameter; performing an integrity check of the probe by first determining and writing into the memory values of the defined quality parameter before sterilization of the probe by irradiation; determining the values of the defined quality parameter after irradiation; and comparing the values of the quality parameter determined before radiation to those determined after.

A method of using electricity to produce methane includes maintaining a culture comprising living methanogenic microorganisms at a temperature above 50° C. in a reactor having a first chamber and a second chamber separated by a proton permeable barrier, the first chamber comprising a passage between an inlet and an outlet containing at least a porous electrically conductive cathode, the culture, and water, and the second chamber comprising at least an anode. The method also includes coupling electricity to the anode and the cathode, supplying carbon dioxide to the culture in the first chamber, and collecting methane from the culture at the outlet of the first chamber.

A method for optimizing a process (PROC) to produce a biochemical product (P) defined by a quality attribute, the process being controlled by an actuation parameter (C) and being monitored to get a measured value (T). The method includes training a predictive model (PRED) on a training database; and deploying the trained predictive model (PRED) to provide a correction actuation parameter (dC) when a predicted quality attribute (pQA) is out of a targeted quality attribute interval (QAmin, QAmax). The method also includes a step of designing a physical model of the process (PROC) able to provide a simulated quality attribute, the training database comprising simulated quality attributes computed from the physical model and experimental quality attributes computed from biochemical products (P) previously produced.

The present disclosure relates to a device for liquid processing in the process of cell culture, comprises: a settling tank which is configured to store a cell culture fluid from a bioreactor; a communicating tube that allows the bioreactor to communicate with the settling tank; a first excretory tube for discharging a cell concentrate, which is connected to the settling tank; a second excretory tube for discharging a supernatant, which is connected to the settling tank; a pump; and a control unit. In such device, after the cell culture fluid is separated into the supernatant and the cell concentrate by the gravitational settling in the settling tank, the control unit is configured to control the pump to (a) return the supernatant to the bioreactor through the communicating tube and harvest the cell concentrate through the first excretory tube and/or (b) harvest the supernatant through the second excretory tube and return the cell concentrate to the bioreactor through the communicating tube.

An antibiotic susceptibility testing device of gram-negative bacteria, as well as a corresponding method, are discussed. The device has a temperature control unit (including a constant temperature chamber) and a contactless conductivity-based measurement system. Disposable glassy or PVC tubes are used as test vessels for AST. In the performance of AST assay, appropriate kind of liquid medium containing identical amount of target bacterial cells and target antibiotics at different concentrations are loaded into test tubes, following by incubation in the device at a setup temperature. The bacterial growth profile is monitored by collecting the differential values (ΔC) of conductivity of liquid medium, which depend on the proliferation of viable cells. Outcome of ΔC indicates whether the target bacterial cells are completely inhibited by the test antibiotic or not, enabling the user to judge the value of the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) simply.

A system for collecting, growing, and analyzing biological specimens that may present a health threat. The system includes separate modules for specimen collection, sample isolation, and sample analysis that can be interconnected to safety process, culture, and analyze and unknown specimen. A decapitation module allows a user to safely collect a swab tip containing an unknown sample and transport the sample to a culture module where the sample can be washed from the swab tip and isolated in a cuvette for growth and analysis. The culture module may be coupled to a base station that can provide mixing, heating and cooling, as well as optical and spectral analysis.

A bioreactor for producing hydrogen gas and other metabolites. The bioreactor utilizes light, fermentation, and other metabolic processes for the production of metabolites, derived from various microorganisms contained within the bioreactor through respective metabolic pathways. The bioreactor comprises a main reactor chamber, a semipermeable membrane, a sleeve, a power supply, a substrate medium, a heating member, a plurality of tubing members, a collection reservoir, a pressure-sealed connecter member, and an agitator.

A control device performs control of a culture condition in production of an organic compound by a fermentation method. The control device executes processing a plurality of times to acquire culture data, to calculate, using the acquired culture data, a plurality of candidates for a culture condition set in advance, and a linear model set in advance that outputs a production amount of an organic compound at a future time, the production amount at the future time for each of the candidates, to determine an optimum candidate out of the candidates using the calculated production amount at the future time for each of the candidates and a target production amount of the organic compound at the future time set in advance, and to change the culture condition to the determined candidate. The linear model and the target production amount are set for each time.