Con las capacidades de la nueva Planta Piloto de Bioprocesos del CTPTI, IQS Tech Transfer incrementa su diversidad de servicios a la industria en el campo de la biotecnología, ofreciendo así desde pruebas de concepto hasta escalado de procesos.
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Image of a 144L bioreactor
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The Bioprocess Pilot Plant is one of the units included in the new Process Transfer and Integrative Technologies Centre (CTPTI) at IQS. This infrastructure provides advanced research and technology transfer to the industry, aimed at integrating productive technologies that lead to creating high value added products and materials. The CTPTI aims to develop excellent research projects intended in particular for industry transfer, thus strengthening the technological development and innovation in the Catalan industrial network in sectors that show a great potential for growth, such as the biotech sector.
Chemical, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are developing more and more innovative production strategies, based on microbial fermentation, to produce proteins, enzymes, metabolites and other high added value products. After developing these reactions in the lab, they need scaling tests to evaluate the viability and validate the process before they proceed to industrial production.
Equipment and facilities
The new Bioprocesses Pilot Plant occupies a total space of more than 130 m2and features three differentiated, yet internally connected areas: the pilot plant, the laboratory, and the warehouse.
One central unit in the plant, measuring 50 m2, is the place where the bioreactor and the rest of the pieces of equipment required to perform the biotechnology process are located. The room has auxiliary services (water vapour, demineralised water, gases) as well as different pieces of equipment to process and isolate bioproducts (“downstream processing”, DSP). The main pieces of equipment included in this area are:
- BIONET F3-100, 144 L Biorector, for 20 to 100 L useful harvests.
- 100 L seeding/harvesting tanks (jacketed and non-jacketed)
- GEA Niro Soavi Cellular Disruptor, with capacity for 20 L/h.
- Alfa Laval process centrifuge, CLARA 80 model, with capacity for 20 L/h.
- BIONET M-50 micro/ultrafiltration machine, with ceramic and hollow fibre membrane filters.
- Lyophron COOLVACUUM -55ºC Lyophiliser, with cylindrical chamber and manifold.
The warehouse, located just next to the central unit, has a 4ºC cold chamber and enough space to store reagents and products distributed across shelves and security closets.
Lastly, the auxiliary laboratory is designed both to prepare the inocula and means of harvesting, as well as to carry our preliminary studies or perform analytical tests. Therefore, on the one hand, the space is equipped with analytical instrumentation and with a laminar flow hood, gas hoods, incubators, baths and centrifuges. On the other hand, the laboratory has a 10 L BIONET bioreactor to prepare the inocula to be used in the process bioreactor, or to perform preliminary studies on protocol transfer.
With the capacities of this new pilot plant, IQS Tech Transfer is expanding the diversity of services to the industry in the field of biotechnology.
Facility Directors
The plant's operations and the quality of the service is based on the experience of IQS's team involved directly in the project and formed initially by:
- Dr Antoni Planas (Plant Director), Doctor in Chemical Engineering and Chair of Biochemistry.
- Dr Marc Carnicer (Project Manager), Doctor in Biotechnology and Associate Professor of Bioprocesses.
- Mr Oriol Selva (Plant Technical Operator), Master in Biotechnology
- Dr Núria Vallmitjana (Director of the IQS Tech Transfer division), Doctor in Economics and Business and Chemical Engineering.
This project has been cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union as part of the framework of the ERDF Operations Programme. 2015 ERDF S-05 Report
