Combinatorial genome editing to create enhanced biomanufacturing platforms

This project will deliver a pipeline of engineered Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells with characteristics and performance that will enable improved manufacture of novel biologic products. Recent research has identified critical metabolic check points that control CHO cell growth, and characterised pathways controlling product integrity and yield. In this project we will use this knowledge to deliver multiple and combinatorial gene ‘edits’ in CHO cells to produce cells that deliver efficiency and cost gains in manufacturing processes for biotherapeutic products, and broaden the product range that can be manufactured in this system. The improved performance of the cells will be assessed in fermentors and scaled-up to “manufacture ready” processes to ensure that project outputs are translatable into the manufacturing setting and outcomes are widely disseminated to the UK academic and commercial bioprocessing communities.