A configurable system for repeatably performing processes related to tissue growth in a controlled environment, possibly part of an industrial production line. The system can accommodate various sizes and shapes of culture vessels, and can maintain the cells at a desired temperature in the culture vessels, thus enabling a plug and play system that can produce consistent and repeatable results. The system includes gas management, fluid management, and control of multiple processes simultaneously, and can be automatically operably coupled with a variety of supporting technologies that can enable tissue-related processes. The system can communicate with supporting technologies upstream and downstream on a manufacturing line, enabling fully automated process control, centralized data historization, and centralized control.

Disclosed is a method for the culture of photosynthetic organisms selected from among microalgae, cyanobacteria and macroalgae using a continuous or discontinuous CO2 source.

An incubator for cell and tissue culture under controlled atmospheric conditions has a primary air flow control device that forms a primary, preferably laminar flow, air veil across an opening that allows access to the cells or tissue cultures disposed within the incubator. Preferably, most if not all of the air in the primary (laminar flow) air veil is recirculated, and a secondary air flow control device is used that forms a secondary, preferably laminar flow, air veil between the primary (laminar flow) air veil and a user of the incubator.

A portable and modular renewable energy microgeneration apparatus is disclosed that includes at least four modular units. The first modular unit includes a mixing tank and a chopper. The second modular unit includes a buffer tank, a liquor tank, and a pasteurization tank that pasteurizes waste that has been mixed with liquid from the liquor tank by the mixer, chopped into smaller sized components by the chopper, and pre-warmed by the buffer tank. The third modular unit includes a digestion tank that performs anaerobic digestion on pasteurized waste received from the pasteurization tank. And the fourth modular unit includes a gas storage tank that stores gas generated by the waste in at least one of the mixing tank, the chopper, the buffer tank, the liquor tank, the pasteurization tank, and the digestion tank. Each of the four modular units is both portable and modular.

The invention provides a skin culturing apparatus configured for biphasic culturing of mammalian skin and/or a mammalian skin substitute. The apparatus comprises a first chamber that is configured to provide a gaseous environment having a relative humidity below 90% and comprising less than 5% CO.sub.2, and a second chamber that is configured to provide tissue culture medium at a temperature of 33.0-37.5° C. and pH of 6.1-7.9. The invention also provides methods for culturing mammalian skin and/or skin substitutes, as well as methods for testing mammalian skin and/or mammalian skin substitutes cultured in the skin culturing apparatus.

The present invention provides improved bioprocessing systems and methods for cell culture using the improved bioreactors, e.g., batch-fed or perfusion bioreactor cell culture systems for production of monoclonal or bi-specific antibodies, which are modified to include one or more membrane gas transfer modules in place of a sparger- or microsparger-based aeration systems to better regulate the levels of critical gases in a bioreactor cell culture, e.g., the dissolved levels of O2 and CO2, even at high cell densities, without subjecting the cells to bubble-burst associated cell death.

The present invention relates to collapsible and/or foldable fermentation and/or culture vessels fabricated of an adjustable frame including sections of gas permeable material or in the alternative a non-rigid gas permeable polymeric container or bag fabricated of either a gas permeable or non-gas permeable material with the further benefit of more efficient inventory space and disposal space, wherein the gas permeable material or non-gas permeable material comprises an analyte or pH sensing material integrated or impregnated into at least one section of the material.

The disclosure relates to methods of capturing carbon by microbial fermentation of a gaseous substrate comprising CO into one or more first products which, in turn, may be incorporated into an article of manufacture or one or more second products. Further, the disclosure relates to improving carbon capture and/or efficiency.

Embodiments of the invention relate to a cell culture incubator having a gas flow regulation system that exerts control over atmospheric parameters within the incubator. Particular embodiments include an enclosed environmental chamber and a control unit operably linked thereto, the control unit having an oxygen module and a pressure module. Control unit embodiments, by way of these modules, are configured to regulate both oxygen partial pressure and total gas pressure within the enclosed environmental chamber. Embodiments of the control unit are adapted (a) to provide instructions to the oxygen module to regulate an oxygen level to an instructed hypoxic oxygen level and (b) to provide instructions to the pressure module to regulate total gas pressure to an instructed positive pressure level. The regulation of oxygen to the instructed hypoxic level prevails despite an oxygen partial pressure-increasing effect of the positive pressure condition associated with the instructed positive pressure level.

A bypass flow monitoring chamber that may be retrofit onto the main chamber of an incubation chamber, for continuous collection of environmental samples. This allows for the measurement and correction of the environmental conditions within the chamber, and the return of the sample to the main chamber. Utilizing this sampling method, the separable bypass flow monitoring chamber may be isolated from the main chamber by a set of valves during a period of high-heat decontamination of the incubator therein protecting the sensors and contents of this separable chamber, as well as allowing the use of less expensive and lower temperature rated incubator sensors.