The present invention provides a system and a method for the production of cells and/or cell products. The system comprises at least one cell culture unit comprising at least one bioreactor for culturing cells, at least one technical control unit for controlling a cell growth parameters, said technical control unit is at least fluidly connected to the cell culture unit, and at least one air treatment unit for treating ambient air, said air treatment unit is fluidly connected to the cell culture unit. The system is characterized in that the system is autonomous and the bioreactor total volume is at most 1000 L.

This invention relates to a biological indicator, comprising: a carrier inoculated with a test organism and an effective amount of a carbohydrate to reduce the resistance of the biological indicator to steam sterilization. The invention relates to a steam sterilization process using the biological indicator.

A system and method for the production of microbial consortiums and by-product material is provided. A physical containment system comprising phase spaces arranged in a discrete order to favor specific biological reactions is also provided. Phase profiles and phase data sets include the pre-determined physical and biological parameters for the phase space transitions. Movement of material from one phase to the next is hydraulically balanced enabling working fluid to continuously move in a fixed direction and rate of flow. Continuous monitoring of phase profiles and phase data sets provide feedback to the system enabling alteration of the conditions in the system to control reactions therein.

The present disclosure is generally directed to systems and methods for retrieving cells from a continuous culture microfluidic device. In some aspects, a system that allows for selective extraction of one or more cells of interest from an arbitrary population of cells using a high-throughput negative cell selection technique is disclosed herein. For example, the system may comprise a microfluidic device comprising a plurality of cell growth trenches configured to contain cells and a patterned light source capable of selectively killing unwanted cells contained within the device. Coupled with time-lapse imaging, one or more cells of interest within the device may, in some aspects, be identified and extracted with a relatively high extraction efficiency, e.g., at least 99.9% of cells of interest may be extracted from the plurality of cells. In addition, some aspects of the disclosure are directed to methods for using such a system.

This disclosure relates to large-scale bioreactor systems comprising a vessel comprising internal reaction chamber having a volumetric and cell-sustaining capacity significantly above that of currently available bioreactor systems.

A process for purifying a composition comprising water, a target substance, impurities and optionally cells, the process comprising the steps (A) and (B): (A) preparing a liquid feedstock by performing step (Ai) and/or (Aii) on the composition: (Ai) removing at least some of the cells from the composition; (Aii) concentrating the composition by removing water therefrom; and (B) passing the liquid feedstock through an apparatus comprising at least two processing units, each such unit producing a product stream containing purified target substance and optionally a waste stream comprising at least some of the impurities, wherein each unit comprises specified components (i) to (v). The units may be essentially the same except for a device they contain, leading to advantages in terms of simplicity, cost and ease of operation, lower risk of operator error, easier maintenance and lower inventory of spare parts.

A virus inactivation method is provided. The method includes irradiating a solution containing an artificially expressed antibody or antibody fragment with ultraviolet rays in the presence of a radical scavenger. The irradiating only aggregates 5% or less of the antibody or antibody fragment. A wavelength of the ultraviolet rays is 200 nm or longer and 315 nm or shorter. An irradiation amount of the ultraviolet rays is 300 mJ/cm.sup.2 or more. An irradiation time of the ultraviolet rays is 3 minutes or less. A concentration of the radical scavenger in the solution is 0.03 mM or more.