Source of Images and article: 10.1186/s13568-019-0794-5

A Study Shows Better Way to Make HEK Cells at large-scale for Gene Therapy and vaccine production

Researchers, including Yang and others, have shared a new method that could make it easier to produce important cells used in gene therapy and viral vaccines. Their study shows how to grow HEK293T cells and Vero cells on a large scale using something called single-use bioreactors. This is important because it can help make lots of HEK cells, which are really important for gene therapy.

Usually, when scientists make viral vectors (which are like delivery trucks for gene therapy), they use small containers or steel bioreactors. But this method doesn’t make a lot of viral vectors, and it’s hard work, expensive, and risky because of germs. It’s also hard to make enough for everyone who needs them when a new medicine is ready to be used by doctors or sold in stores.

Yang and the team tried a different way. They used single-use bioreactors with tiny beads called microcarriers to grow more cells. They managed to grow the HEK293T cells up to 1.5 million cells in each milliliter of liquid in a 50-liter bioreactor. They also grew Vero cells up to 3.1 million and 3.3 million cells per milliliter in 50-liter and 200-liter bioreactors. These cells grew pretty fast too!

This new way of growing cells is exciting because it could help make more vaccines and gene therapy treatments. If you want to know more about how they did it, take a look at the publication from Yang and the team. It explains how this new method could help make more HEK cells, which are really important for new treatments.