Cultivating animal cells as biotechnology "engine" [New Practice of Governance - Shanghai]

Source: Xinmin Evening News, Reporter: Zhang Jiongqiang, Editor: Zhu Yan  2017-07-03  16:08

Image from Visual China

Laboratory of "BioEngine", Photo provided by the interviewed company

On the 5th to 6th floors of the first building of "Zhangjiang Pharmaceutical Valley" in No. 720 Cailun Road, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, there is a place with "one set of people and two signs" - "The signboards of "Zhangjiang Institute of Modern Biotechnology of East China University of Science and Technology" and "Shanghai BioEngine Sci-Tech Co., Ltd"
Wensong Tan, a professor at East China University of Science and Technology, is not only the chairman of BioEngine, but also the director of Huali Zhangjiang Institute of Modern Biotechnology, and he is comfortable with the two identities, "the university professor running the company to implement the transformation and industrialization of scientific and technological achievements, clear property rights, and national policies are encouraged. At the same time, our enterprise can not be separated from the school, we take the postgraduate students, and enterprise employees together to carry out technical research, and do everything in a real-world state, they are very sought-after in the job market in the future. We can say that this is a multi-win thing".

Finding new technologies to replace old traditions

BioEngine has a clear development goal, that is, to provide a continuous impetus for the development of China's biomedical industry as a biotechnology engine. What does this mean? And what kind of biological products does it make? Coming to this company, the reporter walked into a warehouse first, only to see dozens of nutrients such as glucose and amino acids neatly arranged on the ground. Tan said with a smile, one of their jobs is to synthesize these nutrients into a special "formula" called "culture medium", which is used to cultivate hundreds of millions of animal cells.

Ordinary people may not understand why humans need to cultivate animal cells. Professor Tan explained, where do we get the virus vaccines used in medicine? Where do the monoclonal antibodies for biological therapy come from now? They all originate from animal cells. But for a long time, the production process of human and poultry virus vaccines commonly used in China is still quite backward, either using chicken embryos in eggs or primary cells such as gopher kidney, which often can only be cultured in rolled bottles, in addition to adding bovine serum as a nutrient solution. In traditional bird flu vaccine plants, tens of millions of fresh eggs are wasted during production, not to mention that these "toxic" eggs must be incinerated to avoid contamination.

Could a technology be found to replace the traditional eggs with a large-scale culture of animal cells? This is one of the important results of the "BioEngine" innovation, which is also the key to the development of the bio-industry in China.

Industrial scale has become a bottleneck for development

Wensong Tan introduced that from vaccine and antibody research and development to industrial production, large-scale, high-density animal cell culture technology has become the mainstream technology for the development of the international biopharmaceutical industry today. The global market size of human virus vaccines has reached tens of billions of dollars and has doubled in the past five years; while the proportion of vaccine sales in China to the total revenue of the pharmaceutical industry is still less than 1%. At the same time, the global therapeutic antibody drug industry surged from more than $300 million 20 years ago to nearly $100 billion last year, yet the annual sales of domestic antibody drugs in China are still less than 1 billion RMB.

The main reason for the gap between China and developed countries in the modern biopharmaceutical industry is that in the past, China did not pay enough attention to the large-scale culture technology of animal cells. Moreover, key raw materials such as serum-free protein-free medium and key equipment such as bioreactors, which support the development of China's antibody and vaccine industries, are highly dependent on imports, which means that China has not been able to cultivate animal cells on an industrial scale for a long time and has become the biggest bottleneck for industrial development.

Professor Wensong Tan, the academic leader of the State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering of East China University of Science and Technology, is the first and only team specializing in the research and teaching of large-scale and high-density culture of animal cells in China. Thirty years of perseverance and silent work have enabled this team to accumulate profound technical skills. Now, as an independent enterprise legal person, "BioEngine" has built a technological innovation R&D and application service platform in Zhangjiang with international first-class level and the first one in China for the pilot incubation and industrialization of biopharmaceutical products such as antibody, recombinant protein and human and poultry virus vaccine, which can provide technical service and process development for 5-8 antibody and vaccine enterprises at the same time. Meanwhile, we have made a major breakthrough in the manufacturing technology of serum-free medium, and the pilot production system of personalized serum-free medium, which is at the international advanced level, has been completed and put into operation, with an annual capacity of over one million liters.

Break technical problems to speed up the localization

The reporter learned that to achieve a large-scale culture of animal cells, two major technical problems must be solved for the cells: one is the nutrition problem, that is, to meet the specific needs of the cell culture medium, the finished product is often in powder form, held in the hand and ordinary bread flour looks the same. But the technical content is so high that no matter in which part a spoonful is taken, the composition is guaranteed to be 100 percent consistent. Professor Tan said, "cell culture uses the medium, just like people have to eat, eat food. Dissolve substances including glucose and amino acids in water into culture fluid, and the cells are raised in it, which can produce virus vaccines, recombinant proteins, and antibody drugs for the prevention and treatment of diseases for us humans. The technical requirements are very high." Another technical issue is the bioreactor, the vessel in which the animal cells are cultured, which must be able to provide a comfortable environment for the cells. Whether it is nutrition or environment that the cells need, it has personalized characteristics, and it is important to know what the cells want first, and then to design and develop it specifically.
For the future, Wensong Tan is confident: the second phase of "BioEngine" will invest more than 150 million yuan and will accelerate the localization of key raw materials and bioreactor equipment while enhancing the innovation of technology platforms and service capabilities, to better support the development of China's recombinant protein, antibody, and human and poultry virus vaccines and other biopharmaceutical industries.

Reporter Jiongqiang Zhang