Production

Amoéba is positioned as a research and development platform for amoeba production.

Its know-how acquired during years of testing and trials make it an outstanding unit, always at the forefront of optimization.

Various steps were necessary to reach the level of expertise in industrial production of the microorganism that Amoeba has today.

Willaertia Magna C2c Maky is not a pathogenic microorganism. This amoeba was little studied in the past and the scientific articles that mentioned it could be counted on the fingers of one hand. These publications allowed us to start our research, but later, we had to be creative to develop our know-how.

Adhesion culture, an unsuitable process:

In its early days, Amoeba produced its amoebas on plates (cell culture flasks) in adhesion. Willaertia Magna C2c Maky developed on the surface for 2D production. This is the classical method of amoeba culture in the laboratory.

This method, although effective, was not efficient. The surface and the volume of culture medium necessary to produce the desired quantity of amoebae were important brakes towards an industrialization of the production.

The transition from 2D to 3D culture:

Thanks to an extensive research phase, Amoéba’s teams succeeded in developing a means to transform production from 2D to 3D culture. This resulted in considerable space savings and a remarkable improvement in productivity and output.

To produce the same quantity of amoebas, a suspension culture requires a space of 2m2, while an adhesion culture would have required 21,500m2.

Amoeba has successfully evolved this process towards amoeba suspension culture through numerous studies. This process has revolutionized the company’s approach to production. Months of work followed to carry out a scale up, which allows Amoéba today to be able to supply our biocide on a European scale.

In order to always optimize its yields, Amoéba looked for a solution that would allow it to standardize the production volume while limiting the risks of quality deterioration.

Continuous infusion of the culture medium:

By using a process of continuous infusion of the culture medium into the bioreactors (where the amoebas develop), Amoeba secures its production thanks to the robustness of this process. This guarantees a constant harvest at a known volume because each parameter is controlled and monitored.

To meet the needs of a continuous suspension culture, the culture medium used to provide a favourable environment for amoeba development had to be custom-made.

Amoeba is the sole owner of this formula with unique physico-chemical parameters.

Learn more about Amoéba’s Industrial Project