Review of microfluidic microbioreactor technology for high-throughput submerged microbiological cultivation

Microbial fermentation process development is pursuing a high production yield. This requires a high throughput screening and optimization of the microbial strains, which is nowadays commonly achieved by applying slow and labor-intensive submerged cultivation in shake flasks or microtiter plates. These methods are also limited towards end-point measurements, low analytical data output, and control over the fermentation process. These drawbacks could be overcome by means of scaled-down microfluidic microbioreactors (mu BR) that allow for online control over cultivation data and automation, hence reducing cost and time. This review goes beyond previous work not only by providing a detailed update on the current mu BR fabrication techniques but also the operation and control of mu BRs is compared to large scale fermentation reactors. (C) 2013 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4799966]