In the event of a pandemic, Prof. Udo Reichl and his co-worker Dr. Yvonne Genzel want to make much more vaccines available than is possible today produced with conventional chicken eggs. Therefore they breed mammalian cell lines, which are commercially available, in order to cultivate the viruses. With their cell density bioreactors they want to increase the number of required cells and thus also the viruses used for worldwide vaccinations.

In the reactor, the cells are grown on the surfaces of microspheres. This allows the cells to adhere but still remain in solution via the microspheres. Nutrient media run through tubes similar to a blood vessel system. When the cells have reached the optimal health condition, they are brought together with the viruses which are harvested after a certain incubation period.

At present, the method is in an optimization process. The method should be also suitable for the breeding of other viruses used in research.

For more information:
http://www.mpg.de/grippeimpfung