Automated system for cell line development by Cyntellect
Previously available only as a fee for service from SAFC Biosciences, CellXpress is now an automated system for cell line development from Cyntellect (San Diego, CA). It is powered by the company's proprietary laser-based LEAP system. CellXpress targets biopharmaceutical teams developing manufacturing cell lines for potential medicines, promising to reduce the time required to get to clinical testing, decrease production costs of protein therapeutics, and substantially increase the number of development projects which can be processed in parallel.
The CellXpress system exploits high-speed imaging of living cells combined with simultaneous laser elimination of undesired cells, leaving behind cells that are efficiently secreting biopharmaceutical proteins. The process is initiated by imaging thousands of cells per well to quantify the level of protein being secreted by each cell. Measurement is enabled by Cyntellect's proprietary in situ assay for capturing and labeling secreted protein around living individual cells. The best secreting cell is located in seconds within a pool of thousands of candidate cells. The imaging and purification processes can be repeated hundreds of times an hour to enable scanning through millions of cells per day, often yielding hundreds of highly-secreting clones.
Competing manual and semi-automated approaches are able to screen thousands of cells per day and often yield tens of clones following many weeks of growth and assessment, the company says.