The course
Scope and concept
Look inside the program.
The course "Biosystems Engineering - Bioreactors and Cell Factories" is uniquely combining modelling and simulation of bioreactors and biological systems. With continuous updates reflecting the newest trends and developments in biotechnology research, it has successfully conveyed expert knowledge to participants from academia and industry. It emerged 2004 from the "Biological Reaction Engineering" course which has been held in Braunwald since 1981.
Enabled by the interdisciplinary expertise of the lecturers, it integrates the quantitative description and engineering of metabolic systems with their reactor environment and thereby provides the full picture for successful strain and bioprocess development at the frontier of current research.
A speciality of the course is the hands-on use of simulation software and relevant exercises. Using examples from our book "Biological Reaction Engineering" and the easy-to-use simulation program Berkeley Madonna, the participants gain solid understanding of physical systems in biotechnology and their models and they can directly interact by changing process parameters and interpreting the graphical output. This greatly enhances the learning of mathematical modelling. Further exercises on metabolic networks use different software packages integrated in MATLAB, which will also be available during the course.
The intentionally kept small group size provides a great learning atmosphere and close personal interactions with the lecturers. This gives rich opportunities to react to particular interests of the participants for special topics, workshops, and individual simulation problems. The teaching material outlines state-of-the-art methods as they are applied today in academic and industrial research and development.
Reached by cable railway, the auto-free village of Braunwald is situated at 1300 m, far above the Linth Valley and close to high mountains (2700 m) with a spectacular view on mount Tödi (3600 m). The participants and instructors live together in the best local mountain hotels. It is an ideal, quiet location, and the hotel is well equipped, comfortable and serves excellent meals.
The participants and instructors live together in one of the most excellent Swiss mountain hotels. The course is scheduled for the morning and evening hours. The afternoons are reserved for a range of other activities, the most important of which is mountain walking and climbing. Often assisted with lifts to the top, we are able to enjoy the alpine world at 2000 m, from where the neighbouring peaks look very majestic. The special atmosphere of the course greatly enhances the learning experience.
