"Bioprocessing Strategies for Cell and Gene Therapy Products"

Ivan Wall, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer
Biochemical Engineering
University College London

Cell and gene therapy has enormous promise to meet a healthcare treatment void. However, there are still many manufacturing challenges to overcome to achieve commercial viability. Our group’s research sits at the interface of biology and bioprocessing for cell & gene therapy. We seek to address challenges that relate to process development and product characterization by ensuring that processes and analytics are appropriate to the sensitive cell material being generated. To ensure the best chance of success both in clinic and commercially, it is necessary to 1) create robust processes that do not alter the product attributes, 2) be certain that the right product measurements, linked to expected physiologic response, are being made. An overview of how we are approaching these two challenges will be presented with specific examples covering our approach to MSCs, exosomes and T-cells.