Monitoring of cell culture bioreactors is critical to process control and optimization. Currently, offline sampling is used in various cell culture operations. This process is time consuming and labor intensive. Automating the sampling process is highly desired but concerns about sterility, sample volume and cross contamination are common. This paper presents the evaluation of an automated sampling system by Groton Biosystems. This system allows sampling from up to eight bioreactors and connections to up to four analytical devices. It automates the sampling process from the reactor through the analytical device, reporting the results directly into a data historian. Several aspects of the evaluation will be discussed, including ease of use, robustness, sample viability, data reporting capabilities, and bioreactor contamination risk. The performance of the system was compared to the current manual sampling technique. Results showed that the two techniques are comparable. Bioreactor contamination was not observed. The system is easy to use and does not adversely affect the cell culture process.

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