The motto “Fast, Faster, Vibrio natriegens” served as the theme for this year’s 99€ Bioreactor Competition at TU Dresden, organized by the “NETZWERK BIOVERFAHRENSTECHNIK DRESDEN e.V.” from July 4–5, 2019. Alongside eight other participants (TU Berlin, University of Stuttgart, HTW Dresden, TU Kaiserslautern, Mittweida University of Applied Sciences, Technical University of Braunschweig, Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin, and TU Dresden), a team named “The Sun Rises in the East” from Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences also participated for the first time and took second place, winning prize money of 400 €.

The task was to design and build a bioreactor with a budget of just 99 €, capable of fermenting the organism Vibrio natriegens in pure culture to achieve maximum biomass productivity (1st place), maximum biomass yield (2nd place), or the most technically innovative reactor design (3rd place).

With a doubling time of at least 9.8 minutes, Vibrio natriegens grows more than twice as fast as the much more well-known bacterium E. coli. A high division rate is highly desirable, for example, for the investigation of systems of genetic technology and their subsequent commercial application. Vibrio natriegens can be cultured under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions and exhibits very high substrate uptake rates while placing only minimal demands on the medium in terms of available carbon sources. Due to these impressive properties, Vibrio natriegens is increasingly becoming the focus of attention among scientists. However, the first step is to develop suitable bioreaction systems and process control that combine high productivity with high yield. To date, there is very little published data on the cultivation of Vibrio natriegens.

The project team at the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences has taken on this challenge through close collaboration between the departments of Microbiology and Bioprocess Engineering. Thanks to the dedicated collaboration of our colleagues Prof. Wiegert and Ms. Lorenz, as well as their constant willingness to devote additional time to the project, a reactor with appropriate process control was designed that, in comparison, yielded a good biomass yield (the good ratio of biomass obtained to raw material used).