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BEC 488/588/CHE 488
Animal Cell Culture Engineering

Course Description

This course will provide students with practical experience with key cell culture techniques and processes used by the biomanufacturing industry, with a strong focus on single-use bioreactors. Specific areas of focus include: cell banking, gene therapy vector production, Design of Experiment (DOE), and operation of bioreactors in various modes: batch, fed-batch and perfusion. This is a half-semester course offered in the spring.

Lecture Topics

  1. Introduction to cell culture and cell banking.
  2. Gene therapy vector production.
  3. Design of Experiments (DOE).
  4. Strategies for enhancing protein production: Gene editing tools and metabolic engineering.
  5. Media, bioreactor design, modes of operation.
  6. Scale-up parameters and critical process parameters.

Lab Topics

  1. Scale up and banking of HEK293 cells grown in a 10-stack.
  2. Plaque purification of a Baculovirus stock.
  3. Design of Experiment (DOE): Optimization of transient transfection into HEK293 cells to produce AAV2-GFP.
  4. Production of AAV5-GFP (baculovirus): Scale-up and infection of insect cells in a 50-L single use bioreactor (SUB).
  5. Production of a monoclonal antibody (mAb) using the ambr250 Modular bioreactors.
  6. Production of a monoclonal antibody (mAb) using Alternating Tangential Flow (ATF) perfusion.

Prerequisites

BEC 463, BEC 441 or BIT 466 or industry experience