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A key challenge for bioprocess engineering is the identification of the optimum process conditions for the production of biochemical and biopharmaceutical compounds using prokaryotic as well as eukaryotic cell factories. Shake flasks and bench‐scale bioreactor systems are still the golden standard in the early stage of bioprocess development, though they are known to be expensive, time‐consuming, and labor‐intensive as well as lacking the throughput for efficient production optimizations. To bridge the technological gap between bioprocess optimization and upscaling, we have developed a microfluidic bioreactor array to reduce time and costs, and to increase throughput compared with traditional lab‐scale culture strategies. We present a multifunctional microfluidic device containing 12 individual bioreactors (Vt = 15 µl) in a 26 mm × 76 mm area with in‐line biosensing of dissolved oxygen and biomass concentration. Following initial device characterization, the bioreactor lab‐on‐a‐chip was used in a proof‐of‐principle study to identify the most productive cell line for lactic acid production out of two engineered yeast strains, evaluating whether it could reduce the time needed for collecting meaningful data compared with shake flasks cultures. Results of the study showed significant difference in the strains' productivity within 3 hr of operation exhibiting a 4‐ to 6‐fold higher lactic acid production, thus pointing at the potential of microfluidic technology as effective screening tool for fast and parallelizable industrial bioprocess development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to provide knowledge about the determinants of success in the screening phase of the investment process and to demonstrate its relationship with success in obtaining capital from business angels (BA). This research sets out to achieve this objective by analyzing the impact that the evaluation of the business opportunity, the managing team and the presentation have on success in the screening phase. To do this, the research proposes four main hypotheses that are tested on 215 projects presented at a BA's network. The data for the analysis are extracted both from the BA and from the entrepreneurs. The results show that the evaluation of the presentation is the most important factor that influences success in the screening phase, followed by the evaluation of the business opportunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pichia pastoris has emerged in the past years as a promising host for recombinant protein and biopharmaceutical production. In the establishment of high cell density fed-batch biomanufacturing, screening phase and early bioprocess development (based on microplates and shake flasks) still represent a bottleneck due to high-cost and time-consuming procedures as well as low experiment complexity. In the present work, a screening protocol developed for P. pastoris clone selection is implemented in a multiplexed microfluidic device with 15 μL cultivation chambers able to operate in perfusion mode and monitor dissolved oxygen content in the culture in a non-invasive way. The setup allowed us to establish carbon-limited conditions and evaluate strain responses to different input variables. Results from micro-scale perfusion cultures are then compared with 1L fed-batch fermentation. The best producer in terms of titer and productivity is rapidly identified after 12 h from inoculation and the results confirmed by lab-scale fermentation. Moreover, the physiological analyses of the strains under different conditions suggested how more complex experimental conditions are achievable despite the relatively easy, straight-forward, and cost-effective experimental setup. Implementation and standardization of these micro-scale protocols could reduce the demand for lab-scale bioreactor cultivations thus accelerating the development of protein production processes., (© 2020 The Authors. Biotechnology Journal published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.)