/ CBET Updates

CARR Biosystems Collaboration

The Stack Family Center for Biopharmaceutical Education and Training (CBET) is proud to collaborate with one of the top innovators in bioprocessing equipment, CARR Biosystems®. CBET and CARR Biosystems share the objective of improving lives and are working toward this goal together by increasing the availability of and exposure to breakthrough technology in the biopharmaceutical industry.

The CARR Biosystems UFMini® Single-Use Centrifuge efficiently concentrates and separates live cells while maintaining the cells’ viability. The primary applications for the UFMini® are in the harvest and washing of cells for use in cell therapy, cellular agriculture, and cell banking — as well as the clarification of cell cultures during mAb or other therapeutic protein production.  The UFMini® single-use module provides a closed system for sterile processing, eliminates cross-contamination and the need for CIP and SIP cycles, and drastically reduces change-over time between centrifugation runs. Furthermore, one of the highlighted capabilities of the CARR Biosystems’ Unifuge Family® is the ease of scalability. The UFMini®, which easily fits on a standard-size laboratory bench, can seamlessly scale up to the larger Unifuge® Pilot, or to the even larger manufacturing scale U2k®.

The Experiment

Our CBET team, Ryan Hobson, Ezea Harrison-Bachman and Oumou Diallo, recently evaluated the performance of CARR Biosystem’s UFMini® Single-Use Centrifuge in the bio-separation of Chinese Hamster Ovary-S (CHO-S) and Human Embryonic Kidney 293F (HEK293F) cells.  The key performance indicator measured during the study was Viable Cell Recovery (VCR), which is crucial in the manufacturing of cell therapy and cellular agriculture products where high VCR improves manufacturing efficiency and product quality; VCR is also important in the manufacturing of therapeutic proteins, where high VCR reduces the burden on subsequent purification steps.

The experiment was designed to concentrate the cells using the UFMini® centrifuge at varying feed flow rates and constant G-force/Separation Speeds. The concentrated cells (Centrate) and the clarified cell culture media (supernatant) were collected and saved for further analysis. The cell density, cell viability, and turbidity of the Centrate and Supernatant were measured following each centrifugation run. The final VCR was analyzed revealing preliminary results that exceeded expectations.

To learn more about CARR Biosystems visit: CARR Biosystems | Home

Pictured left to right: Empty HEK293F feed flask, DPBS buffer, the Centrate containing concentrated HEK293F cells, the UFMini Single-Use centrifuge, and the Supernatant (waste) flask.
Pictured left to right: CBET’s Scientist Ryan Hobson, CARR Biosystems’ Field Application Scientist Robert Romean, and CBET’s Scientist Ezea Harrison-Bachman
 
 
Pictured left to right: Ezea Harrison-Bachman, Robert Romean, and Ryan Hobson working on the UFMini during the HEK293F centrifugation experiment.