Читать книгу Agitator Design for Gas-Liquid Fermenters and Bioreactors - Gregory T. Benz - Страница 11

Foreword

Genetic modification, microbiome, green technology, renewable fuels and chemicals, bio‐degradable plastic, pandemic recovery, prebiotics, probiotics, agricultural biologics, world food shortage, meatless meat, animal free dairy, human and animal health. What do these important concepts have in common? They all rely on the use of bioreactors to realize the ultimate benefit to current and future generations.

The most powerful of these products utilized in human and animal health can generate the world supply in quantities measured in pounds. Vaccines, antibiotics, probiotics, prebiotics, and others have a large portion of their cost included in research and development, clinical trials, and regulatory approval processes that bring challenge to this business space. In these cases, the bioreactors capital and operational cost impact to the cost of goods sold is small compared to the margins and returns of a successful product launch. These applications historically required a focus on agitation and reactor design with a focus on functionality versus a minimization of operating cost. These products are apportioned in quantities measured in microgram to gram quantities with price measured in millions of dollars per pound in some cases.

On the other end of the spectrum are commodity products utilized every day in quantities measured in tens to hundreds of millions of tons per year. Fuel, polymers, industrial chemicals, animal feed ingredients, and the like. These products’ sales prices are measured in pennies to dollars per pound and operate on tight margins. Making these products in bioreactors is more challenging as a result requiring a focus on things such as reactor design, power optimization between the agitator and air compressor can be a competitive advantage or define the success or failure of a venture.

The teams I worked with directly had the pleasure of working with Greg Benz for the past 15 years on commodity products. From development to commercialization, the details of reactor design mattered significantly in these projects. The information provided in this book allowed the proper questions to be asked during process design. Bench, pilot, and demonstration trials were designed to be commercially applicable as a result. This allowed for realistic process design, rate, titer, and yield demonstrations to be applied to financial and process modeling early in the process. It also prevented mistakes that saved hundreds of thousands of dollars through effective understanding prior to spending significant development dollars.

Our team worked with the smallest start‐ups to the largest most established biotech companies in the world as a contract research and manufacturing operation. Each time agitation questions are asked, Greg is the go‐to expert that everyone already knows and has positive experiences with. Greg’s knowledge and experience in this area is of significant importance to realizing the benefit of modern biological technology. I am happy to see that he has decided to put his knowledge and experience in a more detailed writing as I have referenced his course materials hundreds of times in the past 15 years. Thank you to Greg, the biotechnology industries favorite “Professional Agitator.”

Jeremy Javers PhDSt. Joseph, MO1 September 2020