Dynamic modeling of sequential batch cultures of hybridoma cells

Hybridoma cells are commonly grown for the production of monoclonal antibodies (MAb). For monitoring and control purposes of the bioreactors, dynamic models of the cultures are required. However these models are difficult to infer from the usually available experimental data. This paper explores a practical situation where hybridoma are cultured in a sequential batch reactor. The simplest macroscopic reaction scheme translating the data is first derived using a maximum likelihood principal component analysis. Subsequently, nonlinear least-squares estimation is used to determine the kinetic laws.