Suspension Culture Methods

Emerging upstream bioprocessing and analytical tools for vector manufacture

Cell & Gene Therapy Insights 2020; 6(1), 117–121.

10.18609/cgti.2020.015

Published: 10 March 2020
Interview
Michael J White

Michael J White is a Scientist in the BioProcess Development group at Ring Therapeutics. He has been working with/on viruses since 2012 as a postgraduate fellow at Yale University School of Medicine in Brett Lindenbachs’s Lab where he worked on virus assembly and viral protein interactions for Hepatitis C Virus. From there he went to Purdue University to pursue his doctorate in the laboratory of Richard Kuhn studying assembly and entry/infectivity mechanisms of flaviviruses such as Dengue and Zika, where alongside purifying virus, he developed expression platforms and purification processes for viral proteins. From here, he broke into industry and gene therapy as a postdoctoral fellow at Medimmune/AstraZeneca within the BioProcess Development Group. It was here that he worked on end to end bioprocess development of AAV vectors focusing on how upstream cultivation and harvest conditions from suspension cultures can influence downstream purification recoveries and vector potency. He is currently at Ring Therapeutics as team lead for upstream process development for a novel gene therapy vector.