BioCentriq Releases Results of Study Designed to Test Transfection of T-cells Using Kytopen's Flowfect® Technology

NEWARK, N.J., Jan. 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- BioCentriq, Inc.—a New Jersey-based, cell and gene therapy contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO)—announced today that they've completed a study designed to test transfection of T-cells with GFP mRNA for evaluation of cell viability, transfection efficiency, and post transfection growth using Kytopen's Flowfect® technology.

The results are published in a white paper titled Efficient, Large-Scale Transfection of T-Cells Using Flowfect® Technology, which was released during last week's Advanced Therapies Week. The study and white paper were at the heart of the partnership formed between BioCentriq and Kytopen in 2021 with the stated goal of determining if simple and efficient non-viral manufacturing of cell therapies could be successfully executed in days versus weeks.

During the study, which was conducted at BioCentriq by their process development team, cells were transfected with mRNA encoding for GFP, which was analyzed using flow cytometry as a measure of transfection efficiency.

Transfection is an invaluable tool used in cell engineering applications to study and modify gene expression by introducing mRNA or DNA into a recipient cell. Traditional transfection methods, such as static electroporation, typically result in adverse effects to cell viability, delivery efficiency, and subsequent cell growth.

"Being able to collaborate with Kytopen to maximize the potential of their Flowfect® technology yielded promising results that we're proud to publish and make available to our industry colleagues," said Alex Klarer, VP of Business Strategy and Innovation at BioCentriq.

Flowfect® is a technology that combines continuous fluid flow with electric fields for high efficiency delivery of payloads such as mRNA, DNA, and CRISPR Cas9 RNP to primary cells. By carefully synchronizing the pulse delivery with the fluid flow, the harmful effects of traditional transfection via static electroporation are eliminated. Kytopen's ex vivo cell engineering platform is compatible with primary cells being developed for immuno-oncology and gene editing applications.

"Our revolutionary Flowfect® platform can unlock the healing power of cells, and the results of this study demonstrate just how useful a tool it is in allogeneic and autologous cell therapy applications," said Bethany Grant, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer at Kytopen.

The white paper is available for download via BioCentriq's website.

About BioCentriq®

BioCentriq is a full-service, New Jersey-based CDMO for cell and gene therapy, focusing on all stages of process development and clinical manufacturing. It was purchased by GC of South Korea for $73M. With over 70 scientists, engineers, analysts, and manufacturing specialists, the company has established quality systems and the infrastructure required to support the release of autologous and allogeneic drug products. For more information, visit BioCentriq.com.

ABOUT KYTOPEN

Kytopen is an MIT startup developing platforms to accelerate the discovery, development, and manufacturing of gene-modified cell therapies. The scalable Flowfect® solution combines microfluidics and automation to make this process easier, faster, and more cost-effective than the state-of-the art solutions. In 2017, Dr. Paulo Garcia co-founded Kytopen with Dr. Cullen Buie. Together they co-invented Kytopen's proprietary Flowfect® technology for high-throughput genetic modification of cells. For more information, visit www.kytopen.com and follow @kytopen on Twitter and LinkedIn. Kytopen products are provided for Research Use Only. 

SOURCE BioCentriq