Enabling Technology in Cell-Based Therapies: Scale-Up, Scale-Out, or Program In-Place:

摘要

Those of us working in clinical and medical technology andautomation are most enthusiastic about our work when theinstruments and techniques we are developing will directlyaffect patient well-being. The recent arrival of FDAapproved chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies1,2 and the further expansion of T-cell and othercell-based therapies beyond oncology applications havereinvigorated discussions around the ways in which we harvest, culture, process, or directly alter therapeutic cells.However, the manufacturing process (i.e., selection ofperipheral blood mononuclear cells from whole blood, activation of T cells, transduction with CAR viral vectors ortransposons, and expansion in an appropriate bioreactor) forcombination gene/cell therapies such as CAR T is complex,and there remain many opportunities for improvements todecrease the cost and improve the safety of these importantnew clinical tools. In this SLAS Technology special issuetitled “Enabling Technology in Cell-Based Therapies:Scale-Up, Scale-Out, or Program In-Place,” we highlighttechnologies that are changing the ways in which researchers and clinicians process and use therapeutic cells.