What is a cloud bioreactor?

A cloud bioreactor allows you to run bioreactor experiments virtually - you design your experiment on a website and it’s run according to your exact specs in a lab. This is a technology that we've custom-built here at Culture Biosciences. By using our cloud bioreactor lab, our clients (bioprocess engineers and scientists) can access more bioreactor capacity without building or expanding their own lab.

Cloud bioreactors enable a few key features for customers:

  • Our customers can schedule and design experiments on our website.
  • When experiments are running, all the data is streaming back in real time. This way it's accessible and you can actually see the process trends while the experiment is going. We also have cameras on every bioreactor, so you can see a live image of the bioreactor as it's running.
  • At the end of the experiment, given that all the data is already in the cloud, you can analyze the data and look at your most recent experiment and compare it to your previous experiments.

Buying an in-house bioreactor system vs. using a cloud bioreactor lab

In-house bioreactor system

Cloud bioreactor lab

Lead Time

1-2 years

1-2 months

Cost

Over $1 Million in CAPEX.

No CAPEX. No depreciating assets, overhead costs, or need to expand team to manage bioreactors.

Efficiency

50% of scientists’ time running bioreactors.

0% of scientists’ time running bioreactors. 100% spent on experiment design and analysis.

Data Quality

Requires additional equipment installation to track off-gas and mass balances.

Hardware and software to accurately track mass in bioreactor are included.

Data Management

30% of scientists’ time compiling and reformatting data.

0% of scientist’s time wrangling data. Real-time data visualizations for faster insights.

Impact

A year after purchase, still in process of building a high-quality fermentation operation internally.

Collect data 12x sooner than if running bioreactors internally, leading to faster decision-making.

Lead Times

1-2 years

Cost

Over $1 Million in CAPEX.

Efficiency

50% of scientists’ time running bioreactors.

Data Quality

Requires additional equipment installation to track off-gas and mass balances.

Data Management

30% of scientists’ time compiling and reformatting data.

Impact

From purchase decision through first full year of use ____.

Lead Times

1-2 months

Cost

No CAPEX. No depreciating asset, overhead costs, or need to expand team to manage bioreactors.

Efficiency

0% of scientists’ time running bioreactors. 100% spent on experiment design and analysis.

Data Quality

Hardware and software to accurately track mass in bioreactor are included.

Data Management

0% scientist’s time wrangling data. Real-time data visualizations for faster insights.

Impact

In first year, do 5x the number of runs you could do internally 

“Once we learned we could get high-quality data by running experiments in Culture's cloud bioreactor lab instead of doing it ourselves - and we could monitor everything in real time - it didn't make sense to buy our own bioreactor system.” 
- Andrew Horwitz, VP of R&D, Sestina Bio
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