Continuous-flow centrifugation, such as the disc-stack centrifuge, is widely utilized in the biotechnology industry as a primary mammalian cell culture harvest step to recover a secreted product in the supernatant.  The disc-stack centrifuge is able to achieve high clarification efficiency prior to using depth filtration to remove remaining cell debris or small particles in the next process step. However, disc-stack centrifugation is not a single-use technology and therefore requires extensive cleaning and sterilization between batches.  Depth filtration, a single-use process, can be used as a primary cell removal step but it is not practical at high cell densities/turbidities, because of the large surface area required and the potential for filter clogging.  In this presentation, we will present data on the evaluation of a continuous single-use fluidized-bed centrifuge (FBC) technology to harvest a high density/ turbidity culture.  The results show that FBC technology can be applied to clarify high density or turbidity cultures and achieve clarification efficiencies of >95% for large-size particulates (> 7�m) and approximately 70% for smaller-size particulates (3-7 �m).  The findings will be presented on the optimization of FBC critical process parameters as measured by centrate clarification efficiency for turbidity and particle counts during harvest of a high density cell culture process.

Harvest of high density cell culture using a single-use fluidized bed continuous-flow centrifuge

245th National Meeting (2013)

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