PRiME Researchers Partner with TIAP and Amgen Inc. for Biomanufacturing-Focused Project

PRiME Director Dr. Shana Kelley, together with Drs. Jason Moffat and Stephane Angers, has secured investment from the TIAP-Amgen partnership program to test a high-throughput cell-screening device that can enable the engineering of cells with superior antibody bioproduction capabilities. This is one of three projects announced under a strategic partnership between Amgen Inc. and Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners (TIAP).

The Microfluidics Immunomagnetic Cell Sorter (MICS) developed in the Kelley lab uses CRISPR gene editing and new cytometric tools to isolate cells with a desired phenotype at high throughput. It has the potential to be an economical platform that performs faster and with greater capacity than existing Fluorescence Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) technology.

In proof-of-concept work published in Nature Biomedical Engineering in 2019, the team showed the platform could screen for regulators of protein expression. The U of T–Amgen team will use it to develop new approaches for antibody bioproduction, as increasingly complex antibody-based therapeutics require new strategies to realize high yields.