Scientists at the University of Bristol discovered a probiotic strain of Streptococcus thermophilus which had been found to have a variety of health benefits. Unfortunately, the media on which it was grown rendered it unsuitable for human consumption.  Our Technical Team were approached to develop a new media which would provide similar cell growth and facilitate a commercially viable product.

Using the Omnilog Microarray system, our Team optimised  the carbohydrate source and media composition for the University of Bristol strain. A media which supported high levels of bacterial growth at lab scale, whilst being safe for human consumption and more cost effective for industrial production was successfully developed.

As part of this project, process scale up was also tested. DASGIP 1 L bioreactors were initially used to optimise fermentation parameters (air flow, agitation speed, pH, dissolved oxygen and temperature) to give the highest possible yields. Optimal  parameters and the newly developed media were then used to assess the fermentation at a 22 L scale. A seed train was used for inoculation and our Dencytee optical density probe provided real time growth measurement. The harvested culture was then processed through our disk-stack centrifuge and cell solids were freeze dried, milled and returned to the University of Bristol along with a sample of spent media for further analysis.