bioreactor

noun

bio·​re·​ac·​tor ˌbī-ō-rē-ˈak-tər 

: a device or apparatus in which living organisms and especially bacteria synthesize useful substances (such as interferon) or break down harmful ones (as in sewage)

Examples of bioreactor in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Such meat is produced in bioreactors, which are sterile vats filled with a growing medium. —Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker, 23 June 2025

Smil calculates that to grow just one per cent of the globe’s current meat output would require something like a hundred times the bioreactor capacity of the world’s entire pharmaceutical industry. —Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker, 23 June 2025

By using microbial bioreactors to fashion the necessary materials to build science-fiction like off world outposts, such ingenuity could perhaps shave decades off stepwise space exploration. —Bruce Dorminey, Forbes, 28 Sep. 2024

For instance, our internal studies have estimated that autonomous, personalized bioreactors have the potential to reduce CAR-T manufacturing costs by 50%. —Behzad Mahdavi, Forbes.com, 14 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1974, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for bioreactor

• benefactor
• chiropractor
• malefactor
• multifactor
• subcontractor
• acter
• actor
• factor
• tractor
• attractor
• cofactor
• compactor

Medical Definition

bioreactor

noun

bio·​re·​ac·​tor ˌbī-ō-rē-ˈak-tər 

: a device or apparatus in which living organisms and especially bacteria synthesize useful substances (as interferon) or break down harmful ones (as in sewage)