Animal cell pilot plant
With a multi-disciplinary team of cell biologists, purification experts, and biochemical engineers, the NRC provides a platform for process-development and scale-up for the production of bioactive compounds using animal cell expression systems. We can also provide services to companies that already have a fully developed process but are lacking production capacity.
Our lab’s combination of services, equipment and expertise is distinctive in Canada. In addition, the versatility of our team and equipment enables us to provide customized solutions for each client, whether the goal is to develop a new process or to closely mimic an existing one. We can also team up with other groups within the NRC to provide integrated process development, from gene expression to purified and characterized bio-products for preclinical studies.
The Animal Cell Pilot Plant specializes in the scale-up of processes using mammalian and human cell lines adapted for culture in suspension. The facility has been extensively used for large-scale recombinant protein production and more recently for viral vector and vaccine production and purification. Over the past decade, we have achieved successful process scale-up with several cell lines (CHO, HEK293, Jurkat etc.) using several expression systems such as stable cell lines, transient transfection and viral infection.
Our team’s extensive experience using monitoring tools to develop control strategies for animal cell culture processes and developing tailored analytical assays provides a smooth transition between the bench-scale process optimization and the 150L scale.
Our fellow experts from the Mammalian Cell Technology and Viral Vector Technology teams can also support the development and optimization of your expression systems at small scale.
The capabilities of NRC Animal Cell Pilot Plant include bench-scale process optimization and scale-up to 150L working volume.
Services we offer
- Development and scale-up of batch, fed-batch or perfusion cell culture processes up to 150L scale for either Risk Group 1 or Risk Group 2 agents
- Scale-up of viral production and purification processes
- Scale-up of transient transfection processes
- In-process assay development
- Customized hands-on training on bioreactor operation (bench to 150L scale)
Expertise
- Cell culture in bioreactors
- Viral infection processes
- Virus recovery and purification
- HPLC assays
Equipment
- A perfusion suite from 3L to 20L
- An 1100 sq. ft. ‘Containment Level 2 Large Scale’ area including several segregated suites for medium and seed preparation, production (20L to 150L) and a 800 sq. ft. bioproduct purification facility up to 500L scale
- Cell culture equipment: bench-top bioreactor systems with working volumes from 3L to 20L; two intermediate scale bioreactor systems (40L); 1 pilot scale bioreactor system (150L); online biomass monitoring tools
- Cell separation devices: continuous centrifugation systems; several acoustic filtration units (perfusion)
- Product concentration and purification: a continuous ultracentrifugation system, a tangential flow filtration unit, an automated system for filtration and chromatographic process operation, multiple chromatography columns, and validated storage for working cell banks
Contact
Eileen Raymond
Telephone: 514-496-6349
Email: Eileen.Raymond@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
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