Dr.-Ing. Thomas Wucherpfennig

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG
Bioprocess Development Biologicals

Binger Strasse 173

55216 Ingelheim am Rhein

Phone +49 7351 54-144806

Mail Dr. Thomas Wucherpfennig


Thomas pursued the study of Biotechnology at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany, and Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He earned his PhD in Bioprocess Engineering from the Technical University of Braunschweig. Prior to joining Boehringer Ingelheim as a postdoctoral fellow in 2014, Thomas acquired valuable experience in the industrial biotech sector at Roche and Clariant. Since 2015, he has held various roles in cell culture process development at Boehringer Ingelheim and currently serves as a Senior Principal Scientist, spearheading late-stage process development. In addition, Thomas is a lecturer at FH Oberösterreich in Wels and TUHH – Hamburg University of Technology, His research focus is on bioprocess scale-up, bioreactor characterization, Process Analytical Technology (PAT), and cell culture process modeling.

Research Interests

  • Scale-up of bioprocesses
  • Bioreactor characterization
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
  • Process Analytical Technology (PAT)
  • Cell culture process modelling

Publications

[185014]
Title: Comprehension of viscous morphology - Evaluation of fractal and conventional parameters for rheological characterization of Aspergillus niger culture broth.
Written by: Wucherpfennig T., Lakowitz A., Krull R.
in: <em>J. Biotechnol</em>. (2013).
Volume: <strong>163</strong>. Number: (2),
on pages: 124-132
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiotec.2012.08.027
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Abstract: The filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger is a widely used host in industrial processes from food, chemical to pharmaceutical industry. The most prominent feature of this filamentous microorganism in submerged cultivation is its complex morphology which comprises dense spherical pellets as well as viscous elongated filaments. Depending on culture conditions, the exhibited morphology has tremendous effect on the overall process, making a precise understanding of fungal growth and morphology indispensable. Morphology, however, is only industrially relevant as long as it can be linked to important cultivation characteristics of filamentous microorganisms such as culture broth flow behavior. In the present study, different conventional and fractal morphological parameters gained from automatic image analysis were tested for their eligibility to predict culture broth rheology from morphologic appearance. The introduced biomass independent rheological parameters KBDW and nBDW obtained by power law relationship were successfully estimated from morphology related fractal and conventional parameters. For improved characterization of morphologic appearance of filamentous fungi newly introduced fractal quotient and lacunarity were compared to conventional particle shape parameters in form of the earlier established Morphology number (MN).