Applications
Cell culture
Use the C-Netics to monitor any suspension cell culture
Cell culture is a commonly used process in the biopharmaceutical industries for biological compounds production such as antibodies, hormones or enzymes. Cells are cultured so that they multiply and create large amounts of molecules of interest that are harvested at the end of the process. Those molecules will be key active ingredients for the final drug manufacturing.
Cultured cells are also required in the manufacturing of some Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs). ATMPs are medicines for human use, produced through biological process including cell therapy, gene therapy and cell engineered products. These groundbreaking drugs are revolutionizing medicine by providing new opportunities for treating cancers, degenerative diseases and genetic disorders.
Cell Therapy is a promising treatment against some types of cancer as the cells are genetically modified in order to selectively target and kill cancer cells, thus reducing the well known side effects caused by classic treatments, such as chemotherapy.
Cell therapy a promising example of ATMP
01.
Collect
For some types of therapies, cells are taken directly from the patient, for others they are purchased from a supplier.
02.
Isolate
03. Reprogram
Cells are genetically modified to better fight the patient’s disease.
04.
Cell expansion
Cells multiply in a bioreactor for several weeks.
05.
Infuse
Cells or molecules produced by cells are injected in the patient to treat him.
Overcoming the challenges related to real-time monitoring during cell expansion
To successfully grow cells, an appropriate artificial environment has to be created. Different parameters need to be monitored to ensure optimal cell expansion, such as their viability and density. This is a time-consuming and delicate operation requiring multiple manual steps, significantly increasing contamination risks.
Culture monitoring requires to collect cell culture samples on a regular basis. Then, cell’s state can be determined based on the physical changes occurring during cell death. Finally, data are analyzed and post-processed to get a numerical values for each parameter of interest.
These three steps represent many significant challenges: first, the analyzed sample must be representative of the whole cell culture to ensure accuracy and precision, independently on the culture volume. Sampling must be done regularly to follow culture’s health trend. However, sampling leads to important contamination risk as the main container need to be opened to take samples.