Cell Culture Dish Podcast  By  cover art

Cell Culture Dish Podcast

By: Brandy Sargent
  • Summary

  • The Cell Culture Dish (CCD) podcast covers areas important to the research, discovery, development, and manufacture of disease and biologic therapeutics. Key industry coverage areas include: drug discovery and development, stem cell research, cell and gene therapy, recombinant antibodies, vaccines, and emerging therapeutic modalities.
    Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.
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Episodes
  • How Real Time Titer Measurement And Monitoring Is Advancing Bioproduction Across Multiple Applications
    Feb 29 2024
    This panel discussion was originally published in the eBook “ Monoclonal Antibody Manufacturing Trends, Challenges, and Analytical Solutions to Eliminate Bioprocessing Bottlenecks” You can download all the articles in the series, by downloading the eBook. Panel discussion members: Carrie Mason - Associate Director, R&D at Lonza Biologics Laura Madia - Independent Industry Consultant Alan Opper – Director of HaLCon Sales at RedShiftBio David Sloan, PhD – Senior Vice President, Life Sciences at RedShiftBio Brandy Sargent, Editor in-chief, Cell Culture Dish and Downstream Column (Moderator) In this panel discussion, we talked with industry experts about antibody process development and manufacturing. Specifically focusing on current antibody titer expectations, analytical challenges and how real time titer measurement is a game changer for bioproduction moving forward. Where is the industry at today with titer expectations and what are the best practices for measuring titer? Laura Madia With respect to expectations regarding titer over the years, what we’ve seen is a need for increased titer within the upstream development of a drug. As an industry, we have moved from the 80s where titers were closer to .2 to .5 grams per liter to the early 2000s where concentrations of titer production rose to 3 to 5 grams per liter. What we see today is a continued increase in titer concentrations, which creates a challenge to make sure that you have technologies that can accurately measure titer concentration without introducing any errors. The other thing that we have seen within the industry is the need for more data to not only understand what is happening in the tank, but also to be able to make decisions about the product as the process is running or shortly after. Lastly, it is important to consider people and resources. It has been exacerbated by COVID, but it is difficult to find people to work within the industry and there are fewer people within a production suite. This has helped to drive the need for online and remote monitoring and automation to make it easier to get the necessary measurements. David Sloan To follow up on the lack of workers, one of the things that we constantly hear from the customers we are working with is that training employees can be a real challenge and a very time-intensive process. Technologies that are easier to use and require less expertise help get people up and running and minimize errors amongst new users of a technology. Laura Madia As for the current best practices for measuring titer, HPLC is the gold standard. But HPLC presents some challenges including training and HPLC requires a highly skilled person to get accurate results. There is a need for something that is simple and easy to use when it comes to measuring titer. You will still need HPLC results for approval and decisions at the end, but to be able to monitor titer throughout the process is important. What are the challenges associated with the way that titer is measured today and what can we do as an industry to improve? Laura Madia One of the challenges is that most of the assays available today are batch processes, so that lends itself to providing a retrospective look and means that most people don’t run samples throughout the process. This is because most people save these tests until the end when they can run a batch and make it more cost effective, and it is typically a long time to result so running it during the process isn’t helpful. Systems today are more for batch process and are not set up for at-line measurement, unless you are lucky enough to be able to have an HPLC that’s dedicated to that tank. Another challenge is speed and accuracy. Many of the techniques that are offline today are longer assays because they’re running as a batch. You must wait for the entire batch, which is a long time to first result.
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    41 mins
  • Advancements in Buffer Management and Single Use Inline Buffer Formulation
    Feb 15 2024
    In this podcast, we spoke with Nainesh Shah, Senior Application Engineer at Asahi Kasei Bioprocess about buffer management including the benefits of inline buffer formulation, and single use inline buffer formulation systems.   Buffer Management  We started the podcast by talking about how critical buffer management is to bioprocessing. Mr. Shah discussed how buffers are required in large quantities during the biomanufacturing process and that traditionally buffers were made in large tanks, stored, and used as needed. However, now real estate in the bioprocessing industry is at a premium and companies are looking to utilize new technologies that can reduce facility footprint. For buffer management, it makes sense to create buffer on demand to reduce the footprint dedicated to buffer production in the past.   Inline buffer formulation is a hot topic with companies who require a large quantity of buffer because it provides a way to create buffer on demand in a much smaller footprint. The interesting thing is that it is now also a hot topic among small R&D scale buffer users as well. Inline buffer formulation systems are ideal for users who need 200 to 500 liters of buffer at a time. The system takes the concentrate and adds clean water to provide just the right amount of buffer on demand. Another benefit of inline buffer formulation is that you can achieve a quick process changeover and move on to the next buffer formulation without spending valuable time cleaning the tank, taking samples, and readjusting the critical parameters.   Recently, any new manufacturer, whether it's a large scale or small scale tends to move into this field of buffer management and operates one or two Inline Buffer Formulation (IBF) systems like the MOTIV™. They then use these systems to make all sorts of buffers needed for their various processes.  The MOTIV Family of Inline Buffer Formulation Systems Next, I asked Nainesh if he could talk a bit more about the MOTIV family of inline buffer formulation and fluid management systems that Asahi Kasei Bioprocess America (AKBA) offers. He explained how the award-winning MOTIV family has evolved into a series of inline buffer formulation systems designed to help companies move past downstream bottlenecks by driving buffer productivity. The product family includes 3-pump, 5-pump, and custom IBF configurations that can fit most any space, cost, or performance requirements. The MOTIV is a leader in buffer production with a range of scale from 4,500 liters per hour to 10 liters per minute to fit an entire range of volume requirements.  He went on to say that they have added a new feature where MOTIV can fill up bags with buffer and monitor the quantity in the bag to make buffer on demand even easier.   MOTIV SU Then we talked about the new MOTIV SU, a single use inline buffer formulation system, built to produce complex buffers on-demand effectively and efficiently, all from one pump head, and without the need for CIP/SIP procedures between batches. The innovative design modulates flow through control valves while simultaneously integrating buffer solutions and mixing. As with all the MOTIV systems, OCELOT System Control ensures precise blends every time, controlled by pH and conductivity feedback or flow.  The MOTIV SU is perfect for a biomanufacturer who does not want to spend time with cleaning and validation. It is great for one time use as it does not require time spent in cleaning, validation, and making sure that it is free of all the contaminants and all the buffers which may be harmful for the next process. Another benefit would be if a biomanufacturer used a buffer which had a chemical or ingredient which would be problematic for other processes, and they wanted to eliminate any risk of contamination.   Since the MOTIV SU has replaceable parts, which come as a pre-built unit, it is easy to replace the components and then the system is ready to run again.
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    16 mins
  • Executing Efficient Scale-up and Large-Scale Viral Vector Manufacturing
    Dec 7 2023
    In this podcast, we spoke with Margherita Neri, Director of Vector Process Development, Milan Site at AGC Biologics, Andrew Laskowski, Global Product Manager Bioreactors at Cytiva and Andreia Pedregal, Upstream Applications Specialist Manager at Cytiva about large-scale viral vector manufacturing. Our conversation included discussions around scalability, AAV (adeno-associated virus) and lentivirus production platforms, adherent culture, and next generation bioreactor improvements. I began the interview by asking Margherita about her work at AGC Biologics. She explained that as the Director of the Vector Process Development Unit, her team is responsible for process development of large scale viral vector production for gene therapy applications. Her team is also the first point of contact for new clients. Next, we talked about the types of viral vector platforms that AGC Biologics operates. Margherita described that at their Milan site, they offer AAV (adeno associated virus) and lentiviral vector production platforms in adhesion and in suspension, at 50-to-200-liter scale with expansion planned for up to 1,000 liters. I then asked her about some of the differences between adherent cell culture and suspension cell culture paths to commercial manufacturing. Margherita said that the first consideration is that most clinical trials in gene therapy have been sustained with vector produced from adherent cells, typically via processes performed using Cell Factory™ or Cell STACK®. Now that those gene therapy products are being commercialized, manufacturers need to increase scale and demonstrate comparability using a minimal comparability exercise. So, systems that allow adherent scale up are very useful in this process. Suspension processes are appealing from a scalability point of view because historically they were used for traditional protein bioproductions which can be scaled up to 20,000 – 30,000 liters. Of course, this scale still needs to be demonstrated for vector production that is performed mainly using transient transfection at 200-500 liter scale for lentivirus and between 500-to-1,000-liter maximum scale for AAV. Margherita went on to say that another important aspect in comparability between adherent and suspension systems is quality of the vector in terms of impurity profiles. She said that with adherent processes, cells are attached to the growth support, and the levels of host cell protein and cell DNA are lower when compared to suspension processes. This is very important for lentiviral vector production that is used in vivo where the requirements for impurity levels are very challenging, especially considering that for lentiviral vectors there is currently no affinity step for purification. I followed up by asking her how AGC Biologics can help customers that want to stay in adherent culture to scale up from current processes, for instance, from flatware to larger-scale production. She explained that when customers ask for a scale increase, they usually offer the iCELLis™ platform. First, they demonstrate at small scale the feasibility of the transition from flatware to the iCELLis bioreactor using the iCELLis Nano bioreactor. Using the iCELLis Nano bioreactor, AGC Biologics has developed a full upstream and downstream process that is highly representative of their process using the full-scale iCELLis bioreactor. AGC Biologics can then propose that customers use the vector produced in the iCELLis scale-down model to perform a comparability study between a clinical vector and the future commercial or large-scale vector. This comparability should be based not only on the comparison of titers, residuals, and all the CQA, but also AGC Biologics suggests performing a test of cell transduction on the target cells (i.e. CD34 or T cells) and evaluation on these cells of transfection efficiency – vector copy number, residuals and functionality. I followed up by asking Margherita about whether the iCEL...
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    17 mins

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