Engineered cells are central to the production of therapeutic proteins, which now account for seven of the top 10 drugs. Furthermore, revolutionary therapies such as CAR-T now make direct use of engineered cells as therapeutics. To support a thorough understanding of the relationship between cellular states during culture and the quality attributes of the resultant biologic, we aim to correlate the metabolic flux of a standard cell line to its resulting product quality attributes.  Using a Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) standard cell line for production of the NISTmAb reference monoclonal antibody, we aim to apply 1D and 2D NMR metabolomics to monitor growth media and cellular extracts during culture, and correlate these measurements to biologic quality attributes using chemometrics and machine learning.

References

Kashi, L.; Yandrofski, K.; Preston, R.J.; Arbogast, L.W. et. al. "Heterologous recombinant expression of a non-originator NISTmAb" mAbs, 10: 922-933, 2018.

key words

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, biotherapeutics, monoclonal antibodies, biomanufacturing, metabolomics, machine learning

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens

Level:  Open to Postdoctoral applicants