Oncolytic virus production using MRC5 cells in Pall's iCELLis nano bioreactor is equivalent in high and low compaction beds

Abstract

Background & Aim In the past five years, Pall's iCellis bioreactors have established themselves in the industry for the development and production of viral products. The reactor's characteristics, mainly scalability, fixed-bed cell retention, closed-processing, advanced process control, single-use ease-of-implementation and footprint reduction make the iCELLis bioreactor well suited for viral production. Methods, Results & Conclusion In this poster, we present our work on the use of the iCELLis Nano bioreactor to successfully culture MRC5 cells and to produce a high-titer proprietary oncolytic virus. Since the iCELLis Nano bioreactor is available in 6 different fixed bed geometries, questions arise if equivalent productivity can be maintained in the largest bed size, a height of 10 cm and a carrier compaction factor of 1.5x. This bed geometry is thought to be the most challenging in terms of obtaining a uniform cell distribution, even and efficient infection, and subsequent high productivity. In these experiments, we demonstrate with an n=3 that the virus productivity in the largest, high compaction, 4 m2 fixed bed is equivalent or higher than the 2.7 m2 low compaction fixed bed and legacy flatware process.