SBIR Phase II: Cell-Based Microfluidic Platform for Drug Discovery

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will complete the development of the microscale bioreactor platform as a useful tool for cell culture studies in drug discovery research and development. The Phase II work has three key objectives : (1) to expand the capabilities of the microscale bioreactor to allow for the measurement of pH, dissolved oxygen, and protein titer ; (2) to construct a fully automated bioprocessing cluster tool ; and (3) to demonstrate the cost and speed advantages of the high-throughput approach to bioreactor production of recombinant protein. The commercial application of this project is in the area of cell culture bioreactors for drug discovery and development.