TRAINING AND EDUCATION IN BIOPRODUCTION

Training and education

Learn and face new challenges in the Testa Center

Get stronger by working together!

Training and education programs in bioproduction are held continuously by Testa Center and its partners. Long-term educational programs and on-demand video link remote training are both common. Using the labs and instrumentation as the training ground is very powerful for direct hands-on practice.

No matter if you are in a bioprocessing lab for the first time or if you are an advanced application specialist, you will learn and face new challenges in the Testa Center.

On-demand training

All the partners who extend the range of training that can be held in the Testa Center. We are open for entry to advanced level training for academies, small-medium businesses, and the industry.

Educational programmes

Standing up to “Secure Excellence” the Testa Center collaborates with academia to support academic experiments, courses, and educational programs to grow the pool of talent in life sciences. 

Mandatory training

All teams entering the Testa Center will be trained by Testa Center in Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS). Anyone entering a lab is required to pass the Testa Center’s EHS exam.

Learning in practice

Very common feedback from teams exiting the Testa Center is “We learned more than we ever expected” and “you get up to speed on everything from the smallest tasks to the entire workflow”. 

Learn about previous trainings

Process control experiment by master students in the Testa Center
read more
Webinar: Filtration by training and example
read more
Students prepared for work in bioprocess
read more
Remote training on the Xcellerex Disposable Reactor
read more
Training how to leverage parallel bio-reactors
read more

Other learning resources

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Testa Center is an open and friendly testbed for biological production. Come to us and leverage the bioprocessing labs, equipment and expertise for the success of your project.

 

Process control experiment by master students in the Testa Center

Professor Bengt Carlsson reached out to the Testa Center in February 2021 with an ask. “Would it be possible to have students in the Testa Center using bioreactors to learn PID control?” he asked, yes, certainly we said.

After two short visits to the laboratory and Bengt and the Testa Center staff prepared the experiment instruction for the students. And when the time came, in October that year, the first students arrived and successfully performed the lab. The students were thrilled to use real-world, industry-grade, bioreactors. And when the PID parameters had been fully optimized, then everyone, including Bengt, went home with new knowledge of hands-on control of bioreactors and big smiles on their faces.

Professor Bengt Carlsson, Department of Information Technology, Division of Systems and Control at Uppsala University. Explains why his students are in the Testa Center.

“Normally we use a lot of simulation exercises … it’s not the real thing, and here they could really try the method on the real process”.

Bengt Carlsson, 2021

Testa Center embraces academic work in life science. We love to work together with academia and other educational organizations to secure excellence in the life science sector. Would you like to know more, please read another testimonial or get in contact with us.

Webinar: Filtration by training and example

Introduction to filtration for application specialists by training and example.

Webinar content

The first part is filtration technology training on Pall products. The second part describes a large-scale ribosome purification project that ran in Testa Center. The third part consists of an introduction to the Testa Center. In the fourth and last part, the presenters answer questions from the audience.

Talks and speakers

  1. Filtration Technologies for Biopharmaceuticals: From Lab Bench Development to Large Scale Production, by Patricia Raleiras, Bioprocess Specialist at Pall Biotech (Pall Corporation).
  2. Large-scale Ribosome Purification, by Suparna Sanyal, Professor at Department of Cell and Molecular Biology.
  3. Introduction to Testa Center, by Jesper Hedberg, Director at Testa Center.
  4. Questions from the audience for the presenters to answer.

Thank you!

Thank you very much to everyone in the audience for listening and for all your questions. Thank you to all presenters for the well-prepared presentations which were all nicely delivered in this webinar.

Students prepared for work in bioprocess

During December 2020, final-year students from Uppsala university learned all about bioprocess optimization for cell growth and purification, and what life is like when you are employed at a bioprocess company.

All the students were from Uppsala University’s Master’s program in Molecular Biotechnology Engineering. This project is the main topic for their last course of the program named “Molecular Biotechnology for Production”. The students were asked by an industrial customer to carry out process development in order to deliver optimized processes for cell culturing of protein in E. coli. and purification using chromatography.

Working independently, the students enjoyed the opportunity and learned what it means to work many long hours with full responsibility for their own lab, processes and results. Karin Stensjö (Senior lecturer and associate professor at the Department of Chemistry in Ångström Laboratory at Uppsala University) who supervised the students was delighted that they were all fully engaged and eager to learn.

Testa Center made a series of interviews, which are summarized here.

Who was involved in the project?

The Downstream Team comprised Therese Koivula, Gustav Johnson and Louise Fitkin.

The Upstream Team comprised Jenny Hännestrand, Gabriel Chumpitaz Chavez, Anisha Khan and Hedvig Kindmark.

The course is ten weeks long and gives the student 15 hp (Swedish university credits) when completed. It is in addition to the Master’s Thesis to complete the five-year program.

Louise Finkit & Therese Koivula
Louise Finkit & Therese Koivula

What is your project assignment?

“We received an assignment to optimize a process protocol. It’s a “wing-to-wing” assignment and a “Do-It-Yourself” project where we own all the work – from learning how to carry out the process and the experimentation to presenting the results to the customer.”

What are you up to right now?

The Upstream Team is optimizing protein expression in E. coli using industrial bio reactors (Applikon ez2-controller parallel reactors).

Meanwhile, the Downstream Team first optimized the use of different salt fractions and will then start refining the process using different pH-concentrations on an ÄKTA pure 25 system from Cytiva.

When asked where most time was being spent, both groups spontaneously answered the same thing – “Learning!” They went on to explain, “Full ownership of the task at hand, the equipment, and experimenting without guidance makes us revisit many things we have learned in earlier courses. Not only that, but we also need to learn how to use and interpret instruments and results we’ve never seen before.”

Is this different from what you do in University?

“University lab exercises come with paper instructions and the result is often known. This project is open-ended in the sense that our results will be reviewed by a real industrial customer…” “… Another thing is the scale of the equipment in Testa Center. It is very rewarding when you get large-scale equipment working using method programming.”

“Usually, we share the university labs with others. Sharing means you have limited time and equipment to do your experiments. We were lucky to be able to run our project in Testa Center where we had both the time and resources to try things over until we got them right.”

Working with the ÄKTA pure 25 for optimization of the purification process.

How does this affect you when looking for a job?

“I think this project was a great experience. It has been very inspiring for my future career,” Jenny said.

“We have had a lot of fun in the Testa Center…” and ” …It has opened my eyes to the great fun of practical work in the lab,” Therese added.

What was the best part of being in Testa Center?

“Best was being able to do everything yourself, from preparing buffers to presenting the results. Another thing is that you get hands-on experience with modern equipment actually being used in industry – that’s super valuable!”

Remote training on the Xcellerex Disposable Reactor

Remote work and training has ramped-up as Covid-19 have made it much harder for anyone to travel. During this week we conduced several days of training over the Internet. In this video Andreas hit the emergency stop for the purposes of training. It was easy to see the benefits of not having to travel, staying in our time-zone, having the best people available and reducing the climate impact from flying! This concept of training is here to stay!

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Andreas in the lab/studio
Training via training video conference

On the following pictures are (from left to right) John Woodgate and Gail Henry from Cytiva from UK. In the Testa Center lab are Jesper Hedberg, Andreas Andersson, Jens Hammarlund from Sweden while providing training on Xcellerex Disposable reactor 50 liter (XDR 50) for customer.

Training how to leverage parallel bio-reactors

In May, we had a training on how to leverage parallel bio-reactors. Ramcon‘s two experts, Kenneth Rasmussen and Ida Järbur came to Testa Center and gave a training session on the Lucullus software (from Securecell). The software is used to program and control our Applikon Ez-2 parallel bio-reactors, but can be used for a wide range of products in Life Science.

Kenneth Rasmussen from Ramcon training us in Lucullus for parallel bio-reactors
Kenneth Rasmussen from Ramcon in Testa Center

Parallel bio-reactors are handy when you need like to run experimental processes with controlled variability, or scaling out to more production units. Running parallel bio-reactors can be confusing as there will be many different sets of variables to keep track of. And sometimes in systems that do not communicate in between each other. The promise of Lucullus is to solve this issue for us.

Applikon Ez-2 Bio-reactor controllers

Upgrading from BioExpert to Lucullus now helps the any application specialist to adjust, program and run the bio-reactors. The software collects the real-time data and helps you to evaluate and store it in a modern way.

Training on how to leverage the bio-reactors will be held again on request, also for our customers.