Small Scale: Flasks
Bench Top Scale: Bioreactor
Figure 2: Cultivating plant cell cultures
and scaling-up from flasks to bioreactor
Our research seeks to produce these valuable compounds through an alternative means, using cell cultures of periwinkle. Cell culture would provide a means of producing these valuable drug molecules more consistently, independent of weather or season, and at a higher concentration than that found in the plant. The overall vision of our research is to meet the needs and demands of important plant-derived pharmaceuticals by developing an economically viable process using plant cell culture.
However, the commercialization of processes utilizing plant cell cultures is presently hindered by the low growth rate of plant cells, the low product formation rates of the desired products, and the difficulties associated with large-scale operation. The objectives of our research are to overcome the current challenges in the production of valuable plant-derived drugs by enhancing production at the cellular level and at the process design level. (Figure 2)
On the cellular level, our objective is to enhance the intrinsic ability of the cell to produce the drug molecules by understanding the regulation and control of the reaction networks that yield these drug compounds. The outcome of these studies is to rationally manipulate the external culture conditions or engineer targeted genes (i.e. metabolic engineering) to improve the production of the compounds from the cell.
On the process level, our objectives are to optimize the production of the drug molecule through the design of the process. Manipulations that enhance production on the cellular level will be integrated into the process. In addition, the process has to be designed to circumvent difficulties specific to cell culture and large-scale operations.