Advancing CAR-T cell manufacturing with modular design and robotics

Alaina Schlinker leads Global Field Application Support for Fresenius Kabi’s Lovo and Cue cell processing systems. Her team partners with therapy developers to integrate automated platforms from pre-clinical process development through commercial manufacturing. With more than a decade in cell and gene therapy, Alaina has played a key role in the evolution of the Lovo system and contributed to the launch of Cue. She holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University.

Edwin has spent over 20 years bringing new life science technologies to market, the last 10 of these focused on solving the challenges of cell therapy manufacturing. He established TTP’s cell and gene team which developed over 10 cell therapy automation systems, including systems that are now in routine use for commercial therapy manufacture. Seeing the challenge of scale remained unaddressed, Edwin co-founded Cellular Origins where he is passionate about enabling patient access to cell therapies through scalable, cost-effective and space efficient manufacturing enabled by the Constellation™ automated cell therapy manufacturing platform. He holds a Master’s degree in Engineering and a PhD in robotic vehicles from the University of Cambridge.

Melissa DeFrancesco, Ph.D., is an accomplished leader in cell therapy and biologics development, currently serving as Head of Process Development and MSAT at Lyell Immunopharma. She has guided multiple programs from early development through pivotal milestones and IND submissions, combining scientific rigor with creative problem-solving and people-centered leadership. Melissa is passionate about building empowered teams and advancing innovative approaches that bridge discovery science with clinical and manufacturing success.