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Recent advances in neural differentiation technology have paved the way to generate clinical grade neural progenitor populations from human pluripotent stem cells. These cells are an excellent source for the production of neural cell-based therapeutic products to treat incurable central nervous system disorders such as Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries. This progress can be complemented by the development of robust bioprocessing technologies for large scale expansion of clinical grade neural progenitors under GMP conditions for promising clinical use and drug discovery applications. Here, we describe a protocol for a robust, scalable expansion of human neural progenitor cells from pluripotent stem cells as 3D aggregates in a stirred suspension bioreactor. The use of this platform has resulted in easily expansion of neural progenitor cells for several passages with a fold increase of up to 4.2 over a period of 5 days compared to a maximum 1.5-2-fold increase in the adherent static culture over a 1 week period. In the bioreactor culture, these cells maintained self-renewal, karyotype stability, and cloning efficiency capabilities. This approach can be also used for human neural progenitor cells derived from other sources such as the human fetal brain.

Recently, application of ionic liquids (ILs) has received much attention due to their special solvency properties as a promising method of pretreatment for lignocellulosic biomass. Easy recovery of ionic liquids, chemical stability, temperature stability, nonflammability, low vapor pressure, and wide liquidus range are among those unique properties. These solvents are also known as green solvents due to their low vapor pressure. The present study was set to compare the effect of five different ILs, namely, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate ([EMIM][Ac]), 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([BMIM][Cl]), 1-ethyl-3-methyl imidazolium diethyl phosphate ([EMIM][DEP]), 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([AMIM][Cl]), and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium-hydrogen sulfate ([EMIM][HSO₄]), on corn stover in a bioethanol production process. The performance of ILs was evaluated based on the change observed in chemical structure, crystallinity index, cellulose digestibility, and glucose release. Overall, [EMIM][Ac]-pretreated corn stover led to significantly higher saccharification, with cellulose digestibility reaching 69% after 72 hr, whereas digestibility of untreated barley straw was measured at only 21%.

The anti-phytoplasma activities of surfactin (derived from Iranian native Bacillus subtilis isolates) and tetracycline towards Candidatus "Phytoplasma aurantifolia", the agent of lime Witches' broom disease, were investigated. HPLC was used to quantify the surfactin production in four previously characterized native surfactin-producing strains, and the one producing the highest amount of surfactin (about 1,500 mg/l) was selected and cultivated following optimized production and extraction protocols. Different combinations of purified surfactin and commercial tetracycline were injected into artificially phytoplasmainfected Mexican lime seedlings using a syringe injection system. An absolute quantitative real-time PCR system was developed to monitor the phytoplasma population shifts in the lime phloem during 3 months following the injections. The results revealed that the injections of surfactin or tetracycline had a significant inhibitory effect on Candidatus "P. aurantifolia". However, the combined treatment with both surfactin and tetracycline (1:1) resulted in the highest inhibition due to a synergic effect, which suppressed the phytoplasma population from about 2×10(5) to less than 10 phytoplasma units/g plant tissue.