Timegated® Raman is accurately following the bioprocess in Testa Challenge
Thank you for tuning in for the second blog of the Testa Challenge blog series. In the first blog, we had a look at timegators trip to Uppsala and Timegate’s first days in the Testa Challenge. To recap last week shortly, on Wednesday timegators traveled from Oulu to Uppsala, on Thursday we got our devices up and running, and on Friday we did our first measurements without any issues.
Read the rest of our Testa Challenge blog series:
Testa Challenge cartoon
Timegate's Senior Application Specialist Dr. Amutha Daniel let her creativity flow, and she drew this cartoon to demonstrate in a fun way what we are doing in Testa Challenge.
Timegate's PicoRaman monitoring the CHO cells in a bioreactor with our ProbePro.
Eventful weekend
Over the weekend the timegators visited Uppsala and Stockholm. We visited the old Uppsala in the countryside and Uppsala’s sights like Uppsala Cathedral as well as Uppsala Castle. After the sightseeing, we enjoyed drinks by the canal. In Stockholm, we went to the Nobel Prize Museum, saw the Royal Palace, and enjoyed some food and drinks there as well. We could not stay away from the laboratory for the whole weekend, so we popped by on Sunday and made more measurements with the next-generation time-gated Raman instrument.
Timegators visiting old Uppsala's church.
Time-gated Raman spectra rising above the fluorescence
During this week, our measurements and the bioprocess’ upstream processing have been continuing. The Fed-Batch phase started on Monday the 21st when there were enough viable cells, and the actual feeding of the cells started on Wednesday. One of our instruments is monitoring 24/7, and we monitor at least three times a day with the other instrument. The spectra have been great and accurately following the bioprocess. With our time-gated Raman spectra, we have seen gradual changes in the metabolites, and even after the fifth day, we can still see the characteristic Raman signal even though the fluorescence interference has increased simultaneously with cell growth.
Raman spectra rising above the fluorescence.
Successful conversations
Timegators had one addition to the team on-site since Timegate’s CEO Mari Tenhunen joined us on Tuesday. This week we have been networking and having great discussions with other companies here in Testa Challenge. Also, we had the pleasure of having an interesting and fruitful online meeting with Andrew Schulman on Tuesday. Andrew works within Open Innovation at Cytiva and has a general view with a strong experience of the biopharmaceutical industry and its future forecast.
Timegate's Senior Application Specialist Dr. Amuthachelvi Daniel taking a look at the Raman spectra with Timegate's CEO Mari Tenhunen.
Preparation for the final week
We are continuing the monitoring over the weekend, and on Monday the 28th the cell culture will be terminated. Timegators are moving to the next house for the last week, and we are also going to visit Stockholm again during the weekend in the middle of the measurements. Next week is the final week of the Testa Challenge, and there will be a lot to update you on, so see you next Friday! As always, feel free to comment or ask anything on LinkedIn or Twitter.
