CyteQuest, Inc. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: 400

Description

Project Summary Cellular therapies have demonstrated the potential to treat a variety of inherited and acquired diseases, but the first generation of approved cell therapies rely on viral vectors for cellular reprogramming. Viral vectors are recognized as a bottleneck in the development of these therapies and other delivery methods, like electroporation, are being clinically investigated. To address limitations in existing electroporation technology, CyteQuest is developing a simple, scalable electroporation platform to optimize transfection parameters and deliver cargo efficiently and reproducibly at high throughput. CyteQuest’s platform consists of a planar flow chip with a thin slab geometry that ensures that cells are subject to a uniform electrical field for reproducible electroporation. The flow cell geometry allows for seamless scaling to a high- volume system for delivery at clinical scale. The key objectives of this proposal are to: (1) demonstrate high-efficiency delivery of clinically relevant cargo including CRISPR/Cas9 ribonucleoprotein complexes to primary human T cells, and (2) construct a prototype large- volume electroporation flow system compatible with the volumetric throughput required for cellular therapy in a clinical setting. CyteQuest will demonstrate that the optimized electroporation parameters of the small volume system can be used directly in the high-volume system with less than 5% variation in the biomolecular delivery efficiency and cell viability. The high-volume electroporation flow system can be manufactured in a process that is cost-effective and robust. CyteQuest ultimately aims to use this novel platform in conjunction with CRISPR/Cas9 technology as a therapeutic application for adoptive cell therapy.