Mini-bioreactors

Eugenio Cinquemani, Hans Geiselmann, Hidde de Jong, Noël Scaramozzino, Soraya Arias

Automation of biological experiments is pursued by top-notch laboratories worldwide in the interest of experimental reproducibility and throughput, and to relieve laboratory operators from daunting tasks. In collaboration with the Experiment and Development Department of Inria - Université Grenoble-Alpes and with Inria - Université Côte d’Azur, we have developed a computer-operated, extensible mini-bioreactor platform for the parallel execution of customizable monitoring and reactive control experiments on microbial cultures. The platform comprises several measurement instruments (spectrometers, cytometer, and more to come), and a thermostated incubator, hosting up to 10 growth tubes of 20 mL, and equipped with LEDs for optogenetics. A microfluidic system enables the routing of samples from the bioreactors to the measurement system, and it regulates input-output bioreactor flows. Software developed in-house operates the platform and allows for the design and automated execution of several experiments in parallel. The platform is operational and under further development.