This grant will initiate research directed towards the eventual commercial availability of a membrane based roller bottle, in general, it is anticipated that a membrane based roller bottle will provide commercial benefits to various sectors within the biotechnology industry that utilize cell culture for applications related to cell secreted products, ex vivo gene therapy, co-culture, and protein purification, The advantages derived by modifying the traditional roller bottle to incorporate membrane based attributes are anticipated to be numerous and unique for each target application. The primary aim of this proposal is to accurately assess the feasibility of membrane based roller bottle prototypes in three targeted applications - recombinant protein production, retro-viral cell transduction, and protein purification. Prior to application testing of prototypes several intermediate objectives must be met. First, candidate membranes will be characterized and quantified with regard to specific attributes. Unacceptable candidate membranes will be eliminated from further testing. Next, acceptable membrane candidates will be built into prototypes configured for use in target applications. These prototypes will be tested for a variety of attributes that qualify the prototypes for testing in target applications. Lastly, the qualified prototypes will be tested in the target applications.
Membrane technology has provided benefits to applications in biotechnology ranging from cell culture to dialysis of unwanted material. To date, these benefits have been mainly associated with suspension cell culture. However, adherent culture could obtain these benefits by creating a roller bottle that included membrane attributes. A membrane based roller bottle would bring anticipated benefits to the biotechnology community by improving the efficiency of the production of recombinant protein, the transduction of target cell and cell culture applications where cells themselves are the product of interest.
