Model of population heterogeneity and metabolic regulation in bioreactors

In this paper, a population balance model of a bioreactor is discussed. The importance of accounting for the heterogeneity of the cell population with respect to key metabolites is elicited. Further, a framework is presented for incorporating key regulatory metabolisms into the model. The preliminary results provide qualitative consistency with what is expected based on process understanding, and also quantitative consistency among the different cases studied so far. These serve as a first step to a more rigorous model validation that is pursued in future studies.