Make Metabolic Shifts Visible

PreSens' 8th participation at this years' Interphex in New York in April was the opportunity to introduce the new Shake Flask Reader SFR vario v1 to American customers. Live demos at the booth and a presentation at the BPI theatre by Dr. Lorenz Fischer, R & D Division, on "Online Measurements of Metabolic Activity Accelerate Your Bioprocess Development" drew the visitors interest to this first device for online measurement of biomass.

"It is this easy and comfortable way of analyzing shake flask cultures, monitoring production processes and optimizing media without sampling, which convinced our visitors!", says Falco Beutler, who took part in the development of the system. Three key factors of the SFR vario v1 are the easy integration in any shaking incubator, the possibility of measuring in up to 4 shake flasks in parallel with just one PC and that the measurement itself is non-invasive - through the wall of the vessel, which means no interruption of the process by sampling.

The SFR vario features optics for scattered light measurement to determine the biomass of the culture. Oxygen and pH measurements are done with pre-calibrated, optical O₂ and pH sensors. These sensors are integrated in ready-to-use cultivation T-flasks and shake flasks sized 125 ml to 2,000 ml. The compact measurement device is connected wirelessly, via Bluetooth, with a PC and the respective SFR vario software. And using the continuous oxygen measurements the oxygen uptake rate (OUR) can be displayed in real time with the device software.

It is this combination of functionalities which makes the system very interesting for media evaluation as well as process development and optimization. Therefore, the Interphex 2015 was the ideal platform for the product launch in North America.