Growing Mammalian Cells, Drugs, and Vaccines in Shakers? A Mini Conference
Disclaimer: Everything below is a mix of what I observed and heard during the event. The goal isn’t to pinpoint "who exactly said what," but to share (usually) an outsider's view and overall perspective on these industries. I’m not here to act as a definitive firsthand source—readers should do their own research. I hope this inspires you to attend events, explore new industries, and hear what leaders are presenting. These notes combine my observations with thoughts on how things could run smoother and how ideas connect (IMO). I’m not an expert, you know? Just hanging out in the room with them. Enjoy!TLDR: A highly technical biotech mini-conference about shaking incubator technology for growing mammalian cells, covering oxygen transfer rates, vessel geometry, and cell cultivation -- way over the author's head but attended with good humor and a free laptop bag.
Topics: Biotech, Vaccines, Growing Cells, Consistency, Vendors, Drugs, Manufacturing, DNA Production
Well… I like this venue a lot and this event fits into my schedule. Also, its on a topic I keep my eye on: bioengineering!! And health!! AND GROWING MAMMALIAN CELLS!!??!? Let’s go learn.
Why Attend: I thought this event was on AI at first hahahahah. So, that’s why I signed up. I will have to tutor two students towards the end of the event (during happy hour, so - “oh well” - me, the sober alcoholic. No big deal. My outfit is AMAZING and this event should be interesting. Let’s see what we learn about growing cells, cause the last time I attended an event liek this, I learned cloning is possible, we can produce PRE-AGED MICE!!!, have been for decades/a century, and probably it’s happening with humans (Jim Carrey!?) i mean.
VENUE: 5/5, FOOD 5/5, Speaker Content: 2/5 (too niche), Networking (2.5/5), Likeliness to Return (1.9/5)
Photo Collage + Commentary:
Notes from the Event:
Okay - I’m early and Boy oh boy do we have a situation here!!
So this event is about growing cells. I sat next to a girl for the first part of lunch who works in the industry. She said that the cells they use and grow at her company are like not from true animals for any recent time, they’re all mass-produced cells. I forgot the word she said, but basically, they’re clone cells of a Chinese hamster species. She said they’re working on their ovaries mostly, but she’s not sure why.
I told her I’ve been to a talk before on cloning mice, and they said that the genetals - especially the female, are one of the first to age, so maybe that’s why… cause they have faster reactions?
She said that makes sense, and they’re super sustainable. Very strong.
But I talked to AI about this, and it says my theory isn’t quite right. Ovaries are mostly random. hm.
Geezeee it’s like every industry has siloed knowledge. Everyone jsut does their piece and doesn’t know why.
Like the finance guys I met this past week - 2 of them !! Even one who started his own FinTech company - BOTH don’t know what the DTCC isssssss
THE FINANCIAL PROFESSIONALS HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THE DTCC!?!?!?!?!?!?
She helps build the environments that they live in, the cell dishes. This is called “media”, which I figured out later.
Then I talked to a guy working here and complimented their food and cool merch. I’m like extremely hyped that they have a laptop bag cause it’s exactly what I need(ed) and their bag is super cute. Amazing colors.
- I asked if I was allowed to take one or if they were for a big giveaway or something. He said I can totally take one. I’m literally so happy. Hahahah it’s really cute.
Also my outfit is amazing. As aI said already. I’m hyped about this outfit I feel liek it’s one of my best ever. Hahahah
BUT one weird thing so far - this guy was saying that the first floor of a local children’s hospital has a learning center for kids, like where they can see basic things about (what? Cancer?) just like… idk its a bit dystopian to like, play around with cancer stuff while you have cancer? Especially while I’m here pretty convinced that cancer IS curable and the info is being kept from us for the sake of “big health”
LOL this event is so funny. I have no idea what we will learn about. BUT I DID FORGET MY CHARGERRRR AHHH - and my translator for my drawing pad. That I need for my math student - MAYBEEEE. Maybe I can get away with not using it for one class. So, yeah. Not classy.
So MAYBEEE I’ll leave at like 2:30 and only stay for 2 hours of talks. Now I think I may go get myself some more food though. I realize I’m hungry still.
OMG they’ve been doing this for 75 years: “shaking technology”
Also he started off saying thanks for being here - I realize this is a good start. It’s a safe easy start. Better than “how is everybody doing?” (and then giving the audience a hard time for not being hype… thats such a lame classic start which pretty much guarantees a shitty speech. That’s one thing I’ve learned from attending 200+ events in the past 2 years.)
He also said it shoudl be engaging and casual and if there are any tangents you want to get into, please bring them up.
Dude this is so great. They’re pointing out the bathrooms, the booklets, their merch, chocolates, swag, “please help yourself to all of it”. This is a nice start to an event.
They are so sweet.
He also said tehy want for these packets to be useful for you for like 10 years. The workbooks tehy gave everyone with the slides and info on it.
wow. classy. smart. value presented.
The CEO gets on stage. He’s super nice and was talking to me before.
How many of oyu in the audience are working on cells? Chemical engineers?
This talk is going to be all about WHY shaking?
And yeah - they have a break at 2:10, so I’ll leave then and go home to get my chargerrr hahah ahh.
Btw these people are manufacturers of incubators that shake so cells don’t go bad.
BTW theeare are like 20 or 30 people here in total.
Now he’s talking about liek, idk LA bending into successful operations while not pushing things into the zone of failure. But my hope is that the next part of his speech makes more sense than the first part hahahah
Can everything work together and be in the zone where things work?
The trend he’s seen over 14 years is there is a drive for high (idk waht) parallel.
But shakers are good and they give a broad application of the shaking motion. But if you asked him 15 years ago if it was possible to grow car-t in a plate, I’d have laughed at you.
Can you do a bioreactor in a 50ml tube, we all woudl have laughed at you. No one was trying to do this.
But it’s possible now because people liek you beat your head on it until it worked.
Your results can be expanded to or better than a bio reactor.
We can’t do liquid feeds of course.
But what are we doing?? Why do we shake?
- we shake to get mixing. It’s pretty obvious. To distribute heat and nutrients.
Prevent cell settling
Gas transfer
There are many, many, many types of vessels in the market. Back in the old days it was only one company, but now we have more companies. Products that help us solve cultivation problems in new ways.
But you can’t just transfer from one vessel to the next. Tehy’re totally different.
Rapid mixing. Gentle but efficient mixing. High surface area gap transfer.
Massive surface area on the flask left by the leading edge.
OMG what is this talk about? Is this a commercial about his company? But also information?
Different materials and vessels have different hydrophiolicities.
If you have glass, it sticks to water, you’ll get better gas transfer and a thick film.
Plastic flasks have lower KLAs than a glass flask of slimier shapes.
If you’re transitioning between glass and plastic you’ll have different KLAs so if you’re having different results, that may be one of the causes.
So he’s going to start diving into KLA cause that determines the oxygen transfer rate.
If you don’t get oxygen, you die. Same for hte cells.
You may want to put a bag over my head by the end of this talk, but it won’t last that long
bhahhah omg.
If you start increasing your filling volume and osmalarity, this decreases your (idk)
OMG this talk is SOOO technical hahahah
When you go from a 250ml to 1L you decrease your KLA cause you decrease your filling volume.
Now it’s super easy to see what matters to us in a shaking system.
KLA is a mass transfer transition, if everyone is still awake
Hahahah omg he is funny
KL is just a rate of diffusion, how quickly gas goes from gas to liquid. ITs a rate
A rate doens’t do you any good fi you don’t know what surface area that rate is applying over. If you can apply a rate over a course of a soccer field, you have a lot of mass.
A = volumetric area. The surface area/volume.Whats left to determine oxygen transfer is the concentration of gas.
OTR+ KLA(C*L-CL) lolllllll
If yo uhave a bunch of hungry cells in your media that are gobbling up the oxygen
Btw “media” means environment, not media. Hahahah cause earlier the girl told me she works in media and I was like WOW COOL and then she told me more and I realized oh. Media = environment in Petri dish or wahtever. The soup they live in.
By the end of this you’ll be like, yeah, we get it man, we’re done
Bhahha this guy is so funny. Idk what he’s talking about but he knows this stuff is dense. There are so many equations on the screen
He said there’s a publication you can dig into in your own time. Some rabbit-hols that are useful: Pitfalls in Early Bioprocess…
And one equation in this, we’ll pick apart
This equation describes KLA as it happens in a shaken cultivation system. Who cares, right? Its a bunch of numbers and variables and exponents
kLA=0.5*d(73/36)*n*d(1/4)/o*VL(8/9)*D(1/2)*v(13/54)*g(7/54) bahahhaha
- he said this is easy but what is easier is we built this calculator on our website .
Smarrtttt - I like how he did the surprise of this, like “it’s easy, right? Yeah. Super easy)
Use the calculator dont just this equation.
Now I’ll show you waht you can change.
First, look at n… that he shaking speed.
LOLLLL this talk is so funny and random for me to attenddddddddd hahahaha it’s so niche. Its liek talking bout shaking speeds and equations
You increase speed and you get greater KLAs, why? You’re smearing the liquid against the vessel, more surface area without increasinghte volume.
Force = 5.6*10^(-7)f….
Hopefully, this is fairly obvious to everyone. As you increase speed, you grow mammalian cells and at some limit you rip things apart. Malign cells are ceceptible to shear, but non-baffled systems are close to laminer flow.
Almost consistent flow throughout the bulk of liquid
No slow acceleration zones. From slow to fast
In a shaken non-baffled system, shear is not really a problem but something to look at as you scale up and down.
If you want to make the deep dive, look up Jeff chambers - he’s the godfather of what happened with this. He first knew when they grew mammary glands in bioreactors, tehy were seeing VCVs. The shear was cause the cells were sticking to the bubble surfaces - and when the cells burst, the rupture kills the cells.
He’s the reason we use Plutonic antifoam in our media.
#knowthewordmedia
Orbital reactors can - idk. Hahahah
Two types of plates one round and one square, the round are more gentle and quicker mixing times.
Rectangular squares? Take a look at splashing.
So what can you do about shear stress? How to manage it?
Look at the diameter + the RPM and multiply them together. Then thats your velocity.
Hahaha omg. Yeah I’ll leave in an hour and 10 minutes. It’s liek, I’m already learning more than plenty.
Okay I got distracted commenting on Larry Cheng’s post. LC is the one for me hahahah. I’m back:
This video is about his whole grad school focus. When you put the flask down, the liquid doesn’t accelerate as a single boat. It will not go back into phase. Very easy if you put a shaker and you’re screwed if the flask didnt shake.
Most of his phase was overfilled and expected it to react like a properly filled.
-Okay he ended it. He will be back on part 2
To review:
We reviewed KLa and OTR and explored an equation which defines kLa for shaken culture systems
Look at the impact of changing shakers speed only for a given vessel
Vessel geometry is huge. If neck geometry, cultures are only have ting opportunities for gas exchange. Yeah. Neck geometry is big.
The greater your reactor volume, the great (idk)
The solutions form other companies really help
Run two flasks. If you’re starting to see problems between one and the other, scale OUT not UP. It depends what is important to you.
If you get enough out of the overfilled flask without sacrificing PQA, you’re fine. But if you barely squeak by, you might just want to split it and run two vessels.
Okay next speaker is going to talk about her work in media development and research. She joined 7 years ago. - The CEO claps that she has been there so long.
Thanks for being here today
Her talk will be about advanced cultivations in microtiter plates.
Research and process development
BHAAHH the CEO gets some chocolate out of a cup to eat it. Hilarious, just in like a “human” way. While he watches this speech.
I sound like a reptilian for saying that hahahah - I more just mean, like, its funny to see him go out of his way to eat chocolate after giving a speech. Makes me think he’s calming his stress.
Microtitler plates are a type of lab equipment with multiple cavity wells, used as sample tubes in a standardized format.
First established in 1990 and then updated again in 2003.
These standards ensure compatibility against all testing platforms.
These were invented originally in 1951 by Dr. Gyula Takasky and have become an essential tool for this.
Fill micro to milliliters at scale.
The geometry can direct the oxygen transfer, mixing behaviors, and evaporation.
There is wide variety in designs. The well geometry is square to circe. The bottom shape is V square or round, and the wall height ranges. There are different materials (durable plastic like polypropylene, polystyrene (more for disposable versions), cyclic olefin copolymer (transparent and thermal, then glass and quartz (stronger, heat resistant). Differenc coating.
Even the well numbers can go from 2-1536.
The height depends on how much media you have in those cultures.
Various applications:
Cultivation microbes
Liquid handling systems
Suspension and adherent cell culture
Spectrometric and cellular imaging.
I’m like omg this is so boring hahahah - no offense cause I want to love this ut it’s really dull for peopel not in this world
But I just noticed that a guy here works for a company that builds electric cars? I noticed an e-commerce company is here too. So, random people are here. And an even a guy with the company thats the same as one who funds a STAIDUM here I’m like wtf? Is a telecommunication company here? But I did a little research and it turns out theres a bioscience company here with the same name.
I’m like omg a bioscience company FUNDED A HUGE STADIUM HERE?!??!? Hahah. No.
Dude, this is so much science.
If there is not enough mixing, at the bottom it becomes a dead zone where cells dont’ get adequate gas exchange. But if there is too much. -The center of hte cell can cause undesirable stress.
To characterize mixing, the lowest well hight is 96 round while the 2 square deep, extra tall are the tallest. Can hold significantly more volume
If we know the width and height of the well, we can calculate the G-force.
Relative centrical force allows us to calculate the missing variables.
Okay. I think I’m gonna zone out and/or do other things during this talk? Check Twitter…
Omg I’m getting SOOOOO distracted/hyped with Ryan Peterson’s latest tweet. I won’t get into it, just for… idk respecting him but MAN OH MAN IS IT BULLISH ON OMY THEORIESISIISISISISISIISISISISIS. I AM A FLEXPORT SUPER FAN FOR A REASONNNNNNNNNNNNNNN. I’ll just put this here.
Lollll okay. That will make sense to, like… 3 people I know. But one day I MAY go back and explain it. Let’s keep going.
Let’s compare the evaporation rates of sealing tapes to csound covers. Hahah
Okay no. I”m not going to pay attention to the rest of this talk. I’m freaking out hahahahahhhaha I am freaking out hahahahahahhahahahahaha.
Okay I’m completely completely tuned out of this talk. I’m so hyped and happy about this flexport stuff. I am excited. Let’s go.
I already learned the word “media” hahahah thats a lot for a day. And go try laptop bag.
Also, I jsut laugh cause the words they’re saying in this talk, I heard a lot of them at Project Hail Mary the movie.
OMG someone said they’re producing in big flasks and the guy was like “wow! Are you producing DNA in them?” And she’s like “no, e-coli” omggg producing DNA???
On my way home I met a nice lady on the train. We talked about our days and she’d been to see a friend and been to the dentist. She asked what I was doing today and I told her I’d been to a talk about growing cells.
She said her nephew was growing human brains for his job
Later it came up that I write blogs and she asked if there are lots of peopel who are my fans and want to be like me
I said not really, I think the internet doesn’t like me cause I do a lot of whistle blowing.
She said I need to be careful in this administration with what I look into… but I told her, idk. I’ve lived in china so I’ve seen waht it’s like when there’s no freedom of speech… so, I’d rather speak up. Not that I’m going out of my way to find trouble, but if weird things are said, I’ll write about it.
Until next time, I wish you the motivation and success to search for opportunities around your area. Search and explore: Who is out there giving talks? There are new things happening all of the time.
Find relatable or interesting topics you like and check them out! Maybe even something hosted at a cool venue, if there’s no other reason to go. Let’s see what you can learn and discover not too far from home. 😊
