Technology expertise

Bioprocess Development – Design For Manufacture

The Bioprocess Development technology unit develops, optimizes and scales up microbial production processes. To implement such processes successfully, our experts use the wide range of technical and support skills at their disposal.

Efficient and cost-effective bioprocess development is essential if new biotechnological production processes are to emerge as competitive alternatives to existing processes or products.

Our team focuses on process development, working closely with our subsidiaries (especially Biocatalysts and WeissBioTech) to bring processes to production and products to market.


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BRAIN Christian Naumer

Dr. Christian Naumer

is our expert in the field of Bioprocess Development

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Scalable biotechnological production processes wanted?

Based on our technology portfolio, we develop and optimize biotechnological production processes for different industries. We offer our industrial partners our technology portfolio in a flexible, modular system.

Contact our technology experts

Process development and process optimization

Process development

When developing a process, we take a "design for manufacture" approach, considering all potential obstacles at the beginning of the project, including legal, technical and commercial issues. We benefit from our many years of experience when solving these issues during the development process.

Our laboratory routinely develops successful processes for producer strains. These include filamentous fungi such as Aspergillus niger, yeasts such as Pichia pastoris and Kluyveromyces lactis, and bacteria such as Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus licheniformis. Both wild-type strains and genetically modified organisms are used for development. The products include enzymes, proteins, small molecules and biomass.

To accelerate process development, a miniaturized milliliter-scale cultivation system with process-like conditions and design of experiments (DOE) are used in the early phase. Further development involves small-scale stirred tank reactors, always keeping scalability in mind. For downstream development, we offer a wide range of purification options with state of the art equipment. Several methods for solid liquid separation (SLS) and ultra filtration (UF) from ml to hundreds of L scale are available.

Process optimization

If you want to optimize your existing process, we can offer you the help you need – regardless of whether you want to optimize just one process step or the entire process, from troubleshooting a single operation to optimizing the entire process.


Scientific publication

Fast-track development of a lactase production process with Kluyveromyces lactis by a progressive parameter-control workflow

Our USPs in process development and process optimization

  • Highly experienced staff with broad knowledge in process development
  • Experience with a wide range of host organisms
  • Upstream and downstream development in close team collaboration

Scalable biotechnological production processes wanted?

Based on our technology portfolio, we develop and optimize biotechnological production processes for different industries. We offer our industrial partners our technology portfolio in a flexible, modular system.

Contact our technology experts

Process scale-up and transfer

Bioreactors from 1L to 200L are available at BRAIN for developing and scaling up bioprocesses. We have a track record of successful transferring processes to our subsidiary Biocatalysts in Cardiff as well as to toll manufacturers. We have successfully scaled up several processes from 1L to 40m3.

Our USPs in process scale-up and transfer

  • Assistance and technical guidance throughout the entire development or transfer project: from planning process development and characterizing processes to technical transfer
  • Flexible equipment and highly experienced staff to cover almost all questions arising in a development project in-house
  • Strong networking with BRAIN’s subsidiaries, Biocatalysts and WeissBioTech

Scalable biotechnological production processes wanted?

Based on our technology portfolio, we develop and optimize biotechnological production processes for different industries. We offer our industrial partners our technology portfolio in a flexible, modular system.

Contact our technology experts

Instrumental analytics

Broad range of analytes

We provide novel and sophisticated approaches for discovering functional biomolecules and cost-effective bio-based processes. Since the related workflows cover a wide range of techniques used for R&D at the intersection of biology and chemistry, our instrumental analytics also deals with a vast diversity of relevant analytes. We analyze both elements as well as small and large molecules including intact proteins. Additionally, our lab covers a large variety of sample preparation techniques such as SPE, SPME, Soxhlet extraction, pre- and post-column derivatization to work in various biological matrices.

When it comes to selecting the best enzyme, monitoring a certain biochemical pathway or the metal binding capacity of a microbe picked for bio-mining, we are able to offer strong instrumental analytical capabilities and provide reliable answers.

With our state-of-the-art instruments and highly experienced staff, we accompany research and development projects from the very beginning – all the way through to the final implementation of quality and stability checks.

Flexibility and networking

Our analytics lab interacts closely with all other technology departments and works with them hand in hand in an exemplary manner. Furthermore, we maintain close synergistic collaboration with our subsidiary Analyticon Discovery to generate an efficient flow of information, methodology and knowledge among scientists at both companies. Besides our own expertise, we therefore have strong internal support for example in structural elucidation and NMR analysis. In addition, we cooperate with specialized analytical laboratories to fill the gaps in areas we cannot cover ourselves.

Briefly, our in-house equipment covers the following separation and detection options:

  • Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) with/without microwave based disintegration
  • Various high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) instruments coupled with a diode-array detector (DAD) and in addition to one of the following:
    ◦ Refractive index detector (RI)
    ◦ Fluorescence detector (FD)
    ◦ Evaporative-light-scattering detector (ELSD)
    ◦ Single-quadrupole mass spectrometry (MS)
    ◦ Ion-trap mass spectrometry (MSn)
  • Gas chromatography (GC) coupled with single-quadrupole mass spectrometry (MS) or flame-ionization detector (FID)

Our USPs

  • Assistance and technical guidance throughout the entire scientific project from planning to method development, characterization of processes, quantification of targets or technical transfer
  • Flexible instrumentation and highly experienced staff to cover almost all analytical questions arising in a research project in-house from quantification of elements to protein identification
  • Strong networking with BRAIN Biotech’s departments, with Analyticon Discovery and with industrial partners to generate fast, reliable and customized solutions for research projects

Scalable biotechnological production processes wanted?

Based on our technology portfolio, we develop and optimize biotechnological production processes for different industries. We offer our industrial partners our technology portfolio in a flexible, modular system.

Contact our technology experts

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