Contamination Risk Mitigation In Cell Culture Media Preparation

By B. Hansmann, V. Thom, A. Manzke; Sartorius Stedim Biotech GmbH; August-Spindler-Str. 11; Goettingen, Germany

The contamination of bioreactors with various infective entities like bacteria, mycoplasma and virus is a great risk for the biopharmaceutical industry. Multiple contaminations have been reported in the past years including virus contaminations even within chemical defined media. Whereas contamination with bacteria and mycoplasma are effectively prevented with various methods, the contamination risk with small non-enveloped viruses (e.g. MVM) poses a greater challenge due to the properties of these contaminants. Virus filtration of cell culture media and HTST are two methods to mitigate this risk upstream of the bioreactor.