Characterization of Cell Therapy Products by Flow and Laser Force Cytometry

Performance Period: 5/1/2019 to 10/31/2019

This project addresses a key Topic of Interest identified by the Workforce Activities Committee (Cell Therapy). The goal is to develop a 3 day short course (“Characterization of Cell Therapy Products by Flow and Laser Force Cytometry”) targeting multiple levels of current and future workforce. The course is designed to provide the fundamentals of two cell characterization technologies (flow cytometry, laser force cytology) in relation to cell therapy. This course has two main components: “Lectures” and “Hands-on Experiments” (approximately 50/50) and is designed to offer a curriculum heavily weighted towards a hands-on approach, and focused on biomanufacturing and QA needs.

The course content will place special emphasis in the fundamentals of flow cytometry, the controls needed to draw more reliable and valuable conclusions, color compensation and how it affects the quality of the data being generated, qualification and validation, as well as troubleshooting with the instrumentation and samples. It will also introduce a novel and complimentary cell characterization technology from LumaCyte that captures cell properties (size, shape, deformability) by applying pressure. With the strong fundamental understanding this course offers, the workforce can apply these techniques more effectively and efficiently to applications currently being developed in their industries.