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Article History

Received: 22 February 2018

Accepted: 8 August 2018

First Online: 3 October 2018

Competing interests

: At the time of writing, L.D.J.-A., J.M. and T.S.G. were employed by Riffyn, Inc. No other authors declare competing interests. Riffyn approached the TU Delft team through its then principal investigators A.J.A.v.M. and J.T.P., based on their track record in quantitative microbial biotechnology research. A.J.A.v.M. and J.T.P. were interested in exploring the applicability of the Riffyn software for microbial biotechnology research in an academic setting and invited three members of their team to participate in this evaluation: M.N. (fermentation technician), H.J. (PhD student working on a quantitative physiology project) and R.M. (PhD student and, subsequently, assistant professor with extensive experience in bioreactor cultivation). R.M., A.J.A.v.M. and J.T.P. had all met T.S.G. when he was still employed by another company but did not actively collaborate with him or with Riffyn when this project started. Evaluation of the software was done independently by the TU Delft team without biased intervention or any financial compensation by Riffyn or its employees. Experiences were discussed and recorded during regular teleconferences, which frequently led to specific requests for technical support from Riffyn authors. The manuscript was written by authors from Riffyn and TU Delft and approved by all authors.