Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Moving From A Bioreactor Scale-Up/Scale-Down Approach To A More Holistic Operational Design Space View, Gene Schaefer, Rick Yeager, Ted Deloggio

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Scale-up of bioreactor processes for biologic products has been an area of focus in the industry for over 50 years and the results have generally been successful through the application of a number of specific correlations across scales for mass transfer, mixing, etc. However, the ability to visualize and understand the bioreactor design space in terms of these parameters has generally been limited as has any general understanding of how close a given process comes to certain sensitivity limits at various scales. As part of a project which involved establishing scale-down models at two different sites with long-term objectives of …

Deepening Knowledge On Cho Cells Metabolism Using Multiple Tracer Substrates, Ana Teixeira, Manuel Carrondo

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Optimization of culture conditions through trial-and-error has led to much of the past progress on animal cell culture. Today, a renewed account of the underlying biologies through a “systems” view is providing a deeper knowledge of cellular physiology and laying the basis to reengineer desirable states of further increased culture performance. In this work, we took a comprehensive view of cellular metabolism by extensively profiling extracellular and intracellular metabolomes after ¹³C‑label supplementation in parallel labelling cultures of [1,2-¹³C]Glucose, [U-¹³C,¹⁵N]Asn, [U-¹³C,¹⁵N]Ser and [1-¹³C]Pyruvate. This integrative approach was used …

A Holistic Approach To Facility Protection From Adventitious Agents – A Case Study, Matthew Osborne, Ronan Kelly, Ann Maria Mccrohan, Marie Murphy

Cell Culture Engineering XV

The Eli Lilly biologics manufacturing facility in Kinsale, Ireland has been operational since 2010 with a 100% cell culture contamination control success rate. The presentation will review the holistic approach to facility protection from adventitious agents that underpins this success including:

• The risk assessment approach to points of entry and management via detectability and control measures
• The approach to personnel training that considers human factors, increased vigilance and event simulations following strategies that are used in chemical synthesis process safety

The presentation will then focus on control of adventitious virus. The talk will briefly comment on the early warning measures …

Implementation Activities For A Chemically-Defined Media Platform To Minimize Media Variability Impact To Cell Culture Performance And Product Quality, Martin Gawlitzek, Brian Wong, Robert Shawley, Masaru Shiratori

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Chemically-defined media have been developed for CHO cell culture platform processes. During implementation of the media at multiple scales and sites globally, additional activities were required to seamlessly balance practical considerations with desired process and product quality performance. Three main focus areas were further investigated and optimized to enable the platform implementation: 1) media preparation, filtration, and post-filtration stability; 2) media and supplement viral barrier compatibility; and 3) and raw material variability considerations. Overall, the effort provided an outlined approach for media implementation in the global network including scale and site-specific case studies where novel options were required.

The data …

Anti-Oxidant Addition To Cd-Cho Media To Prevent Damage Induced By Uv Disinfection, Emma Dare

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation is an advantageous sterilization technique in the biopharmaceutical industry as it is capable of targeting non-enveloped viruses and smaller viruses that are difficult to remove via conventional filtration. Unfortunately, cell culture media contains many components that, upon exposure to light, undergo phototransformations that subsequently lead to poor cell growth. We have shown previously Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell culture performance was affected at fluences above 200 mJ/cm² due to the depletion of several key nutritional components (pyruvate, tryptophan, tyrosine, pyridoxine, pyridoxamine, thiamine) and the accumulation of reaction by-products (acetate, formate, sarcosine). Our objective was to determine …

Improvement Of Cho Specific Productivity Using Amino Acid Derivatives, Aline Zimmer, Caroline Hecklau, Sascha Pering, Alisa Schnellbaecher, Thomas Eichhorn

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Industrial fed-batch cultivation of mammalian cells is used for the production of therapeutic proteins such as monoclonal antibodies. Besides medium ensuring initial growth, feeding is necessary to improve growth, viability and antibody production. Amino acids are key elements for the cellular metabolism but also for the quality of the recombinant protein produced. Several studies have already demonstrated the link between amino acid availability and sequence variants [1-3] or specific modifications like trisulfide bonds [4]. To avoid such modifications, the chemical modification of amino acids is an interesting alternative to modulate their overall solubility [5], …

Development Of An Enriched Cho Feed Media For Quality Therapeutic Antibody Production From High Performing Clones, David Ho

Cell Culture Engineering XV

The use of feed media during protein production is essential to sustain viable cell densities and facilitate high productivity for modern high performing clones. However, the introduction of feed media can also have a significant impact on product quality attributes, such as glycosylation for therapeutic antibodies, which can ultimately impact therapeutic efficacy. For certain antibodies, the absence of fucose on the N-glycan at Asparagine 297 of the Fc domain has been shown to significantly increase binding to the FcgammaRIII receptor on NK cells and results in increased ADCC activity. Here we have incorporated product quality analysis including N-glycan analysis into …

Challenges In The Development And Adaptation Of Platform Process To Existing Pipeline, Edmund Scarfo

Cell Culture Engineering XV

The development and use of platform processes have been adopted as an industry-wide strategy for enabling faster timelines for early clinical stages. However due to increasing product demands and the competitive landscape of antibody therapeutics in the industry, the development and use of a highly productive and economic upstream platform process has also become an adopted strategy. In keeping with industry standards, Takeda’s platform has evolved from upstream processes capable of achieving protein titers from 0.7-1.2 g/L to highly productive processes achieving titers in the range of 4.0-7.0 g/L. Unlike these earlier, low titer processes for the same molecules, the …

Nmr-Based Design Of Chemically-Defined Protein-Free Feed Medium For The Cho Expression System, Marina Goldfeld

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Recombinant expression of antibodies and other biotherapeutics relies heavily on the use of CHO cell lines. The product expression levels in these cell lines are dependent on the feed medium, one of the most important components of the cell culture process. We have developed a systematic approach to designing a chemically-defined feed medium through collaboration between Merck’s Process Development and Assay Development groups. Historically, feed media have been derived from non-chemically defined sources, such as bovine serum and yeast hydrolysate. While these media support robust cell growth and productivity, their chemically-complex nature has hindered efforts to increase the cells’ productivity. …

How To Select The Most Suitable Media For Your Cells, Marcella Dalm

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Many different media are available to culture CHO cells. Most are either growth supporting or productivity supporting. Ideally, the basal medium is a growth supporting medium, while the feed medium is supporting both growth and productivity. In this study two clones producing the same mAb are compared on their response to a range of basal media. Clone I is fast-growing and low-producing, while Clone II is slower-growing, but high-producing. A panel of eleven different basal media from different vendors was evaluated for growth, titer and metabolism.

An overview is given on the response of the cells to the different media. …

Evaluating Sugar-Based Detergents As A Potential Alternative To Poloxamer Bubble Protectant, Jessica Wuu, Jayanthi Lakkyreddy, Steven Meier

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Poloxamer 188 (commonly referred to as Pluronic® F-68) is a commonly-used medium component which protects against bubble-induced shear in mammalian cell cultures. Recently, concerns have arisen due to limited sourcing and variable performance of this critical component. In 2008, Hu, et al.¹ proposed the use of sugar-based detergents – specifically, maltopyranosides and glucopyranosides – as potential bubble protectants based on their rheological properties and relatively low toxicity to cells. This work explores the feasibility of these detergents using commercially relevant CHO cell lines and media. Detergent candidates were evaluated based on their tolerance by cells, stability in cell culture …

Accelerated Bioprocess Characterization By Data Enrichment In Scale-Down Models, Viktor Konakovsky, Graham Mccreath, Jarka Glassey

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Scale-down models are often used for the definition of operating ranges in process development and validation and therefore data exploitation is an important task. Usually, the experimental scientists have very tight timelines and consequentially may often only perform the required routine of cleaning and sorting the data without more sophisticated analyses, even though it might improve data quality. This problem is more exacerbated by the rise of fully automated, miniaturized high-throughput equipment in up- and downstream process development where data processing automation is not just optional but a must. However, cleaned, sorted and time-aligned data alone do not guarantee a …

Development Of A Chemically Defined Media And A Chemically Defined Feeding Strategy For Extended Growth And Enhanced Productivity In Cho-K1 And Cho Dg44 Cultures, Sagar Kokal, Kyle Liu, John Menton

Cell Culture Engineering XV

The biopharmaceutical industry utilizes Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells for the production of recombinant proteins. Due to regulatory restrictions, there has been much focus on using serum-free culture processes including chemically defined (CD) media and feed system. A great deal of time and cost has been invested by biopharmaceutical companies for the development of an optimal CD media. Currently, the fed-batch process is the most dominant method for the large cultivation of CHO cells. In response to these industry requirements, Kerry has developed a complete system including a CD media called Sheff-CHO CD complete and a CD feed system named …

A Host Cell Protein That May Impact Polysorbate Degradataion, Kelvin Lee

Cell Culture Engineering XV

There is growing interest and concern related to host cell proteins. Current issues with host cell proteins include questions related to the various available analytical approaches and the sensitivity of those approaches as well as issues with purification strategies and the impact of host cell proteins downstream. The availability of a sequenced genome enables new opportunities to address problematic host cell proteins via cell line engineering. We studied difficult to remove host cell proteins in CHO cells with the goal of identifying host cell proteins that may be product associated with a number of monoclonal antibodies, that may copurify with …

Development And Application Of Glycosyltransferases For In Vitro Glycoengineering, Alfred Engel

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Glycosylation is an important posttranslational modification of proteins influencing protein folding, stability and regulation of the biological activity, e.g. IgG featuring terminal sialic acids were shown to suppress inflammatory response (ADCC) and increase serum half-life. Fully galactosylated structures seem to improve binding to the complement system (CDC).

Despite all efforts in cell-line engineering and process optimization to increase glycosylation homogeneity, today therapeutic proteins still show a heterogeneous glycosylation pattern, with large variations between bioprocesses and even from batch to batch. The use of glycosyltransferases for enzymatic synthesis of well-defined glycan structures will become an essential tool – at least in …

Retrospective Implementation Of Quality By Design For Legacy Commercialized Enzyme Replacement Therapies, Anup Agarwal, Eric Hayduk

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Quality by Design (QbD) has been widely adopted by the pharmaceutical industry as a tool for transforming development, manufacture, and commercialization of drug products. QbD ensures that quality is built into a manufacturing process to consistently produce desired product. As per a FDA guidance¹, QbD should be employed at the product development stage to ensure manufacture of a product with predefined quality. Here we present a retrospective QbD approach employed at Shire to define an improved control strategy for a commercial process using risk-based process understanding and characterization. Key challenges and considerations of implementing a QbD strategy on …

Comparison Of Commercial Cho Cell Media Formulations Using Material-Oriented Recurrent Spectral Libraries, Kelly Telu

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells are commonly used for the production of biological therapeutics. Metabolic profiles of media components can be used to monitor process variability and look for markers that discriminate between batches of product. Currently, there exists no database of CHO media components or a method for the comparison of commercial media formulations. We are creating material-oriented libraries of CHO media components that include LC-MS/MS and GC-MS data. The libraries represent all metabolites that can be detected by LC-MS/MS and GC-MS and consist of recurrent spectra that cover all known fragmentation conditions and precursors. Recurrent spectra occur repeatedly …

Adaptation Of Cho Metabolism To Long Term Phosphate Limitation, Mugdha Gadgil

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Phosphate is an important component of abundant intracellular molecules like RNA, is a critical component of energy metabolism and is involved in substrate phosphorylation in cellular metabolism and signaling. Inorganic phosphate (P_i) is transported through specialized transporter proteins and limitation in the availability of phosphate in the growth medium limits cell growth. P_i concentrations have been reported to regulate the rates of aerobic glycolysis and oxygen uptake. Thus it is expected that cellular metabolism will adapt to long term phosphate restriction. Since complete phosphate deprivation will result in lack of growth, such an adaptation needs to be …

Integrating Emerging Trends In Upstream Process Development: Autosampling, Nutrient Feedback Control, And Single Use Tanks, T. Craig Seamans

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Key to effective upstream development is the presence of resource-efficient systems for examining complex process options. In this presentation, we report the design and characterization of a 3-L rigid single-use bioreactor (SUB), combined with a completely automated sampling and control system capable of evaluating different metabolic-based feed strategies.

Considerations in our development of a custom 3-L SUB, targeted to replace current workhorse glass reactors, encompassed proper technical functionality to flexibility and ease of use. Highlights include: vessel configuration details (impeller, sparger, baffles), perfusion readiness, agitation system design (magnetic bottom drive), and extra sensor ports and feed lines. The SUB was …

Using Definitive Screening Design To Effectively Assess The Combinatorial Impacts Of Media Supplements On Monoclonal Antibody Production In Mammalian Cells, Aaron Chen

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Process understanding is an essential component of QbD principles. Cell culture media composition can impact many process performance parameters such as viable cell density, product yield and product quality attributes. In order to enhance process understanding and exert better process control, numerous media supplements have previously been tested. However, their combinatorial effects on process and product quality have largely been unexplored. This is partially due to the resource and efforts required to execute relatively large size of experiment and data analysis.

Recent advancement in modern design of experiment methodology has alleviated this issue. The definitive screening design (DSD) allows for …

Development Of Antibody Detection Methods For Active Product At The Cell Culture Stage, Gregory Walsh, Matthew Schraut, Jon Barricelli, Lada Laenen

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Development of new analytical methods to characterize the manufacturing process became necessary when the site wanted to implement process improvements to increase output from the bioreactor. The bioreactor process is monitored and controlled for dissolved oxygen content, glucose concentration, temperature, etc. and samples of the harvest are analyzed daily using an endpoint assay and a total protein method. Neither of the two methods can detect the total amount of product at the harvest stage; the endpoint assay will only detect active product and the total protein method will not discriminate between the cellular proteins and the active product. We have …

The Oxygen Binding Protein, Hemoxcell(R), Increases Cho Cell Growth And Extends Viability By Enhancing Oxygen Delivery, Katrin Braasch

Cell Culture Engineering XV

The continuous monitoring of cell growth and viability is an integral part of biopharmaceutical production. Measurements of changes in the polarizability of individual cells can identify early emerging sub-populations of apoptotic cells in a dielectrophoretic (DEP) cytometer designed at the University of Manitoba. In this instrument the trajectory of individual cells was tracked as they passed through a bank of electrodes (sensitivity: 0.1 µm; rate: 5 cells per second) designed to differentially perturb the cells according to their polarizability. This perturbation was recorded as a force index (FI), which was related to the electrical displacement of the cells. Using this …

Conference Program, Kathy Chan

Cell Culture Engineering XV

No abstract provided.

An Addition Of Lithium Chloride Improves The Transient Gene Expression Yield In Cho Cells, Che Kim, Tae Kwang, Gyun Lee

Cell Culture Engineering XV

As hundreds of new recombinant therapeutic proteins enter into development each year, a cost-effective transient gene expression (TGE) system is required to assess these proteins at an early phase as a more rapid alternative to a stable gene expression system. While several strategies, such as genetic manipulation and environmental modification, have been attempted in TGE systems to improve the overall yield in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells, chemical supplementation is often employed in industrial processes owing to its simplicity and effectiveness. Lithium chloride (LiCl), which is known to induce G2/M-phase cell cycle arrest, was found to be an attractive chemical …

Incidence And Potential Implications Of Methylglyoxal In Industrial Cell Culture Revisited, Frank Chaplen

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Methylglyoxal is a toxic by-product of glycolysis and amino acid metabolism in mammalian systems. The major route for methylglyoxal detoxification is the glyoxalase pathway, which consists of the enzymes glyoxalase I (GLO1) and glyoxalase II (GLO2). A required co-factor for the glyoxalase pathway is reduced glutathione. Evidence suggests that GLOI and methylglyoxal have important roles to play in the signal pathways associated with oxidative stress and necrotic cell death¹. Previous work has demonstrated that growth conditions found in industrial cell culture have marked effects on endogenous methylglyoxal levels in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO)². Furthermore, decreased levels …

Building Qbd Frameworks Retrospectively For Commercial Products And The Use Of Scale-Down Model Qualification Strategies To Support Continuous Improvement, Jose Menezes, Francisca Gouveia, Pedro Felizardo

Cell Culture Engineering XV

A science-based justification for many continuous improvement and post-approval submissions on ‘legacy products’ (i.e., commercial products developed without a QbD rationale) requires that some of those missing QbD elements in the original filing, be defined retrospectively.

Here we present a new proposal to achieve that, that is general and very capable of supporting the transition of ‘legacy’ non-QbD into quasi-QbD filings. It is based on (1) a formal criticality analysis to the current process version to support the choice of quality attributes and process parameters in the filing, and identification of additional ones that may impact the quality target-product profile …

Adapting An In-Licensed/Acquired Cell Culture Process To Platform Conditions, Raghunath Shivappa

Cell Culture Engineering XV

The use of platform materials and processes for new products help streamline process development, enhance predictability and efficiency during manufacturing, and simplify the raw materials supply chain. Although common, adaptation of cell expression systems can require a significant amount of process development work to achieve desired product yield, quality, and comparability. Here, we present a progressive development approach for evaluating platform media and feeds for an acquired cell culture process.

A CHO-DG 44 cell line expressing a novel antibody product was procured through acquisition. The original non-platform media and fed-batch process yielded titers of approximately 3 g/L. A study was …

Antibody Production With Site-Specific Non-Natural Amino Acid Incorporation For Generation Of Antibody Drug Conjugates, Alyssa Powell

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Ambrx’s mammalian expression platform (EuCODE) enables site-specific incorporation of non-natural amino acids into antibodies. This EuCODE technology provides a means for stable payload linkages at defined sites and with a defined DAR of 2 for antibody drug conjugate (ADC) generation. While the ability to control the DAR and payload site can provide an advantage to an ADC, the incorporation of the non-natural amino acid into the antibody heavy chain introduces a unique challenge for antibody production.

To achieve high production of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) containing non-natural amino acids, we engineered a CHO-K1 cell line which stably contains Ambrx’s patented tRNA …

Troubleshooting The Recover Of Mater Cell Bank For A Commerical Product, Mei Shao, Kishan Rao

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Poor recoverability was observed for the Master Cell Bank (MCB) during the preparation of Working Cell Bank for a commercial product. The presentation will describe the investigation process, root causes identified and corrective actions implemented. A new Working Cell Bank was successfully manufactured after implementing the corrective actions. Our strategy to test the WCB prior to commercial manufacturing will also be discussed. In addition, preventative actions were also implemented as a result of the event.

Nanofiltration As An Effective Means To Prevent Virus Contamination Of Cell Culture Processes, Christina Carbrello

Cell Culture Engineering XV

While cell culture media is typically sterile filtered to remove bacteria and mycoplasma, many bioreactors remain unprotected from viral contamination. As awareness of the risk for viral contamination of cell culture processes grows, manufacturers are seeking virus barrier technologies to remove or inactivate viruses. Filtration is an ideal technology in terms of familiarity, ease of use and scalability. However, hurdles to its implementation remain, most notably, the high cost and large footprints required to implement filters designed for the downstream process and the concern that the small pore size of virus filters could impact cell culture performance. A filter specifically …