A bioreactor provides an ideal environment where cells can focus on what they are supposed to do: proliferate. Like lab workers, cells can only produce consistently good work if the conditions are right: it should not be too hot or too cold, and they have to have enough nutritious food and fresh air. In terms of a bioreactor, this means maintaining pH, temperature, ensuring sufficient gas supply and, depending on how the instrument has been configured, adding nutrients for successful maintenance of growth.

Feeding strategy is one of the most influential variables in any bioprocess. Whether you’re working with bacterial, yeast, fungal, or mammalian cell cultures, how you supply nutrients affects everything from growth rates and yields to oxygen demand and product quality. The choice between batch, fed-batch, and continuous culture depends on your organism, application, and production goals. Fortunately, modern bioreactor systems like those from INFORS HT make it easy to implement any of these strategies at lab or pilot scale.