MaxCyte Minutes Newsletter – Q4 2023
This holiday season brings tidings of comfort and joy as we celebrate an important milestone. Our partners at CRISPR Therapeutics and Vertex Pharmaceuticals received FDA approval for the world’s first non-viral cell therapy to treat sickle cell disease manufactured with MaxCyte's flow electroporation technology. We've proudly supported them on this journey from the very start, all the way through to this commercial approval and are committed to keep supporting them and all of our partners in the future. This breakthrough represents a turning point and lights the way for more gene edited treatments in the future.
As pioneers seeking to spread the promise of genetic medicine, we remain dedicated to supporting our customers in their quest to transform lives. As the year draws to its close, we wish you and your whole family a magical and merry holiday season filled with wonder and cheer! May your New Year shine bright with joy and possibilities ahead!
Happy holidays!
Doug Doerfler CEO, MaxCyte
IN THE NEWs
Creating Efficiencies in Engineered Cell Therapy Development with Comprehensive Electroporation Support
MaxCyte Senior Vice President of Global Business Development Sarah Meeks, PhD, spoke with Pharma's Almanac about creating efficiencies in engineered cell therapy development with comprehensive electroporation support.
“Beyond the technology itself, we have a very strong, experienced scientific team with over 40 global technical experts on demand — we call them our field application team — that can leverage their unique experience and expertise to take innovation as it occurs and translate it for our partners and customers."
- Sarah Meeks, PhD, Senior Vice President of Global Business Development MaxCyte
MaxCyte Announces CEO Transition
Maxcyte announces Maher Masoud has been named President and Chief Executive Officer of MaxCyte, succeeding Doug Doerfler, who will retire as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective January 1, 2024. Mr. Masoud, currently the Company’s EVP, Head of Global Business Development and Chief Counsel, will also serve as a director on MaxCyte’s Board of Directors. Mr. Doerfler will step down from the Board of Directors upon his retirement and will remain an advisor to the Company.
CELL BASED ASSAYS
Efficient electroporation of cell lines and induced pluripotent stem cells for ion channel research
In case you missed the webinar with our featured speaker Alfred L. George, Jr., M.D., Professor and Chair Department of Pharmacology Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The event is now available to view on-demand. This webinar focuses on genetic disorders caused by mutations in human ion channel and ion transporter genes. We employ high efficiency electroporation using the MaxCyte STX to express human ion channel variants in cultured mammalian cells to enable high throughput automated patch clamp recording. This work enables determination of functional consequences of ion channel variants at an unprecedented scale without requiring the creation of stable cell lines. We also use electroporation for efficient gene editing of human iPSC lines to create or correct mutations.
In this webinar you will learn:
- To recognize that high efficiency electroporation can enable automated patch clamp of human ion channel variants
- How electroporation efficiency can be assessed using flow cytometry
- To use high efficiency electroporation for gene editing of iPSC lines
BIOPROCESSING
MaxCyte® Flow Electroporation® for Gram-Scale Transient Antibody Production in CHO-S Cells
High efficiency, scalable electroporation of CHO cells with MaxCyte enables rapid gram-scale protein production, extending the potential use of transient gene expression throughout antibody development. As the demand for therapeutic antibodies intensifies, methods for the rapid manufacture of high-quality protein are crucial. MaxCyte Flow Electroporation enables scalable and highly efficient transfection of clinically relevant cell lines producing grams of protein within two weeks. In this Application Note, we discuss some of the factors that are critical for high-yield transient gene expression and demonstrate that conditions optimized at a research scale can translate seamlessly to transfect up 2×1010 cells using the MaxCyte STxTM. MaxCyte equips you with the right tools, support and regulatory expertise to light the way on your journey to discovery.
FOCUS ON
Interview with Winston Harvey
Winston Harvey, has worked at MaxCyte for almost two years, is a management professional experienced in organizational planning and development, team building, mentoring and leadership, as well as lean and GMP manufacturing. He excels at facilitating change in a workforce to support re-engineering initiatives and meeting organizational operating, financial and quality objectives.
