Specific Detection of Infected Cells using Optical Drag-Tags in Laser Force Cytology

Use a generic, label-free approach to assay cultured cells in-process during viral vaccine production for extent of infection based on laser-force cytology (LFC).

Project status

100% Completed

Industry Need

The cost of a viral contamination event can be as much as $100 million due to lost sales and product, in addition to shortage of drug supply to patients.

Solution

A new, more rapid but still broad, sensitive detection of virus method to use in viral vaccine production.

Outputs/Deliverables

Cells isolated from carriers during batch production of virus with Radiance-measured cell properties showing good correlation with infection extent, virus titer
Several model virus quantitated at sub-fM levels using capillary electrophoresis
Model for batch production of measles virus in Vero cells predicts significant transients in behavior and can be used to parse Radiance-measured cell property distributions

Impacts

General test for viral infectivity in cultured cells without requiring the use of specific probes

Reduce the amount of time required by an assay to detect virus in cultured cells thus lowering the cost of a contamination event and resulting in less drug supply lost

Cultured cells analyzed for infectivity in real time (hundreds of cells analyzed in less than 5 minutes)

Publications

McCracken, R., Al-Nazal, N., Whitmer, T., Yi, S., Wagner, J. M., Hebert, C. G., Lowry, M. J., Hayes, P. R., Schneider, J. W., Przybycien, T. M., & Mukherjee, M. (2022). Rapid In-Process Measurement of Live Virus Vaccine Potency Using Laser Force Cytology: Paving the Way for Rapid Vaccine Development. Vaccines, 10(10). https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10101589