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Biochemical engineering, also known as bioprocess engineering, is a field of study with roots
stemming from chemical engineering and biological engineering. It mainly deals with the
design, construction, and advancement of unit processes that involve biological organisms
(such as fermentation) or organic molecules (often enzymes) and has various applications in
areas of interest such as biofuels, food, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and water treatment
processes. The role of a biochemical engineer is to take findings developed by biologists and
chemists in a laboratory and translate that to a large-scale manufacturing process. They also
have to design bioreactors that can facilitate the growth of biological mass through the
transformation or degradation of material fed to the reactor.(Bioremediation of Pollutants,
2020). The impact of computer software on biochemical engineering immense. Thanks to the
advanced technology, computer software are now used to design experiments, interpret data,
store data, and provide results.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The mixture of technology and education opens up endless possibilities. Thus, the use of
technology brings about various delivery methods. It has access to a massive amount of
information, global interaction to enhance learning, and excellent examples through
simulations and models.(Arya, 2019). With the rise of technology, new and better software
are now used in the designing of bioreactors. One example of such software is MATLAB.
MATLAB is a high-level technical computing language and interactive environment for
algorithm development, data visualization, data analysis, and numeric computation. With
MATLAB, scientists and engineers can hybridize data from many data streams, including
signal, image, text, and genetic, optimize pharmaceutical production through process
engineering, perform modelling and simulation for drug discovery and development and
create automatic output reports in Adobe Acrobat, or Microsoft Word and PowerPoint file
formats

Another recognized software in modelling biochemical processes is LabVIEW. It is a

graphical programming language designed for hardware automation. Programs in LabVIEW
are called virtual instruments (Vis) and integrate a graphical user interface (GUI) with the
development of code. A VI contains three components: a front panel, a block diagram, and a
connector panel. The front panel serves as the GUI which contains elements referred to as

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controls and indicators. Controls such as buttons, sliders, and text boxes, allow the user to
manipulate the value of data used during code execution. Data values are displayed on the
front panel with indicators such as graphs, indicator lights, and gauges. Controls and
indicators appear as terminals on the block diagram where code development takes place.
Block diagram structures, such as while loops, control program execution and can reroute the
data flowing through wires allowing for more complex functionality. Due to LabVIEW’s
native multitasking capabilities, execution of parallel processes, such as data flowing through
wires, occurs concurrently.

COMSOL Multiphysics software, an interactive environment for modelling and simulating

scientific and engineering problems, is a general-purpose software platform, based on
advanced numerical methods, for modelling and simulating physics-based problems. With
COMSOL Multiphysics, it is possible to account for coupled or multiphysics phenomena
phenomena. With more than 30 add-on products to choose from, the simulation platform can
be expanded with dedicated physics interfaces and tools for biochemical applications. For
example, COMSOL was applied into the design of the passive vaccine storage device
(PVSD) to safely transport vaccines to every part of the world. During its design phase, the
researchers tested the performance of several PVSD prototypes in an environmental chamber
with similar temperatures to those found in Sub-Saharan Africa. To optimize the design of
their PVSD system, prior to building prototypes, the team used COMSOL Multiphysics and a
variety of its add-on modules, including the Heat Transfer Module and Molecular Flow
Module.(Pambudi et al, 2020)

Another powerful software used in bioreactor design is ChemDraw. This is a drawing

program that allows users to sketch skeletal structures of chemical compounds, which can
then be moved into other programs, like MS Word, PowerPoint, and Adobe Illustrator. Users
can also use it to predict properties and spectra, convert chemical structures to IUPAC names,
view 3D structures, etc. ChemDraw is not limited to drawing chemical structures. Certain
versions include customizable bio-art ranging from enzymes and receptors to cartoons of
entire organisms and bench equipment. Templates in combination with chemical structures
and reaction schemes can be used to show how an experiment is performed or how a
compound fits into an overall experiment. One successful application of ChemCAD was in
pervaporation as a process method for concentrating formic acid produced from carbon
dioxide. Azeotropic distillation simulations for the formic acid (FA) – water (H2O) system

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using ChemCAD 6.0 were used to determine the energy requirement using steam costs in
processing FA feed concentrations ranging from 5 to 30wt%. ( Kaczur et al,2020).

AutoCAD is a CAD (Computer Aided Design or Computer Aided Drafting) software

application for 2D and 3D design and drafting. It is developed and sold by Autodesk Inc.,
along with related products like Revit, MEP, and 3ds Max Design. CAD software replaces
the traditional drawing board and makes design processes faster and smarter than ever before.
(Bethany, 2017).In the Nanoliter Volume Bioreactors for Cell Culturing, AutoCAD in
combination with L-edit software were used to design to types of micro bioreactors, one
having electrodes while the other was designed without electrodes. This investigation was
done to fulfil the desired functionalities such as mixing, separation, flow control or setting the
environment for biochemical reactions.(Gencturk et al, 2021).

METAMOD, a BBC microcomputer-based software package for steady-state modelling and

control analysis of model metabolic pathways, is described, The package consists of two
programs. METADEF allows the user to define the pathway in terms of reactions, rate
equations and initial concentrations of metabolites. METACAL uses one of two algorithms to
calculate the steady-state concentrations and fluxes. One algorithm uses the current ratio of
production and consumption rates of variable metabolites to adjust iteratively their
concentrations in such a way that they converge towards the steady state. The other algorithm
solves the roots of the system equations by means of a quasi-Newtonian procedure. Control
analysis allows the calculation of elasticity, control and response coefficients, by means of
finite difference approximation. METAMOD is interactive and easy to use, and suitable for
teaching and research purposes.(Hofmeyr, 1986).

A very common software used in bioreactor design is Mathematica. It is a computational

software program based on symbolic mathematics that is used in scientific, engineering,
mathematical, and computing fields. Mathematica includes collections of curated data
provided for use in computations. It is integrated with Wolfram Alpha, an online service
which provides additional data, some of which is kept updated in real time. Some of the data
sets include astronomical, chemical, geopolitical, language, biomedical, and weather data.
CplexA is a Mathematica package that uses functional programming to efficiently compute
probabilities and average properties over such exponentially large number of states from the
energetics of the interactions. The package is particularly suited to study gene expression at

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complex promoters controlled by multiple, local and distal, DNA binding sites for
transcription factors.(Vilar and Saiz, 2010).

John’s Macintosh Project software (JMP) links statistical data to graphics representing them,
so users can drill down or up to explore the data and various visual representations of it. Its
primary applications are for designed experiments and analysing statistical data from
industrial processes. It is the next generation statistical software for interactive data analysis,
visualization, modelling and simulation. Key features include: Design of experiments (DOE)
and robust process optimization. Engineering analytics and predictive modelling. Since
mixing in bioreactors is known to be crucial for achieving efficient mass and heat transfer,
both of which thereby impact not only growth of cells but also product quality, the JMP
software models the hydrodynamics of an aerated stirred bioreactor for the production of
biological mass via a cell culture. This is achieved by estimating the volume averaged mass
transfer coefficient under varying conditions of the process parameters. (Sarkar et al, 2016).

OriginPro is a proprietary computer program for interactive scientific graphing and data
analysis. It is produced by OriginLab Corporation, and runs on Microsoft Windows. It has
inspired several platform-independent open-source clones and alternatives like LabPlot and
SciDAVis. OriginPro offers extended analysis tools for Peak Fitting, Surface Fitting,
Statistics, Signal Processing and Image Handling. Users can customize operations such as
importing, graphing and analysis, all from the GUI. Graphs, analysis results and reports
update automatically when data or parameters change. One application of OriginPro involves
the development and characterization of a parallelizable perfusion bioreactor for 3D cell
culture. Here, a miniaturized, parallelizable perfusion bioreactor system with two different
bioreactor chambers was developed to allow the cultivation of multiple independent samples
under different conditions while ensuring comprehensive control over the mechanical
environment.(Zhang and Jiang, 2019).

SolidWorks, developed by SolidWorks Corporation, is one of the world's fastest growing

solid modelling software. It is a parametric, feature-based solid modelling tool that not only
unites the three-dimensional (3D) parametric features with two-dimensional (2D) tools, but
also addresses every design-through-manufacturing process. The latest in the family of
SolidWorks, SolidWorks 2013, includes a number of customer requested enhancements,
substantiating that it is completely tailored to the customer's needs. (Tickoo,
2013).SolidWorks has been used in the designing of micro and milli-chamber -chamber
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bioreactors for human induced pluripotent stem cell culture to reduce stresses caused by
bubbles on the cell growth in the microchip.(Bourguignon et al, 2022).

CONCLUSION

Machine learning has been extensively applied to approximate the intrinsic complexities
between bioreactor operating factors (e.g. temperature, pH, substrate and contaminants
concentrations, agitation and mixing times, nutrient inflow rate) and key cellular metabolisms
(nutrient uptake, product synthesis). This enables the estimation and prediction of important
state variables (e.g. cell biomass concentration), improvements of the bioreactor’s
performance and efficiency and monitoring the process conditions for control and safety
purposes. The performance of any Bioreactor depends on key factors such as agitation rate,
oxygen transfer, pH, temperature and foam production. To control these parameters with
minimum errors, the above software are used.

REFERENCES

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Kaczur, J.J., McGlaughlin, L.J. and Lakkaraju, P.S., 2020. Investigating pervaporation as a
process method for concentrating formic acid produced from carbon dioxide. C, 6(2), p.42.

Gencturk, E., Mutlu, S. and Ulgen, K.O., 2021. Fabrication Protocol for Thermoplastic
Microfluidic Devices: Nanoliter Volume Bioreactors for Cell Culturing. In Bioreactors in
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Vilar, J.M. and Saiz, L., 2010. CplexA: a Mathematica package to study macromolecular-
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Sarkar, J., Shekhawat, L.K., Loomba, V. and Rathore, A.S., 2016. CFD of mixing of multi‐
phase flow in a bioreactor using population balance model. Biotechnology Progress, 32(3),
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J. H. S. Hofmeyr, K. J. van der Merwe., 1986. Bioinformatics, Volume 2, Issue 4, Pages 243–
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Bourguignon, N., Chamorro, D., Pérez-Sosa, C., Aravelli, A., Bravo, E., Perez, M., Miriuka,
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Tickoo, S., 2013. SolidWorks 2013 for Designers. Cadcim Technologies.