Biologics Discovery

Development of an Automated High Throughput CHO Stable Pool Platform for Generating Large Protein Collections

• PA

  Paul Anderson

  Sr Automation Engineer
  Gnf Systems

Recombinant protein expression and purification is a central process in biomedical research and Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells are a primary workhorse for protein production from mammalian cells. GNF has developed a robust suite of software and automated systems to support high throughput CHO (HT-CHO) stable pool establishment, archive of cell banks and protein purification. Pools are established in 96-well plates, maintained until they are ready for scale up, and then expanded into an AutoFlask™. Once cells reach the desired density, cell bank archives are created and one or more batch production AutoFlasks™ are inoculated depending on the amount of protein requested. As an example, a single 50mL culture expressing a human IgG1 antibody typically yields 10 milligrams of protein. Innovative solutions ranging from a new software Dashboard to manage projects and execute processes, a recently developed non-invasive Flask Density Reader and an upgraded harvest and purification system compatible with magnetic beads will be presented. This platform enables cost-effective, facile production of proteins at quantities and quality useful for early stage drug discovery tasks such as screening, protein engineering and even in vivo studies.