Bioreactor promises rapid production of cells for cancer treatment

The bioreactor is able to manufacture the cells, called T cells, at 95 per cent of the maximum growth rate – about 30 per cent faster than current technologies – according to the report published in Biotechnology Progress.

Researchers used T cells from cattle in the testing, developed by co-author Bill Davis of WSU’s Veterinary College, and anticipate it will perform similarly on human cells.

In 2022, there were over 1,400 different therapies using T cells in development, with seven approved by the FDA for a variety of cancer treatments.

Use of the therapy, called chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) is limited, however, because of the cost and time needed to grow T cells. Each infusion treatment for a cancer patient requires up to 250 million cells.

In a statement, study author Kitana Kaiphanliam, a postdoctoral researcher in WSU’s Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, said: “The manufacturing demand for this growing number of therapies is not being met, so there is a gap that needs to be filled in terms of biomanufacturing solutions… [the therapies] need to be upscaled, so they can be used by more people.”