Macroscopic modeling of mammalian cell growth and metabolism

We review major modeling strategies and methods to understand and simulate the macroscopic behavior of mammalian cells. These strategies comprise two important steps: the first step is to identify stoichiometric relationships for the cultured cells connecting the extracellular inputs and outputs. In a second step, macroscopic kinetic models are introduced. These relationships together with bioreactor and metabolite balances provide a complete description of a system in the form of a set of differential equations. These can be used for the simulation of cell culture performance and further for optimization of production.