Manufacturing a COVID-19 vaccine

The Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford is at the forefront in the battle against COVID-19. They are producing the novel viral vector-based coronavirus vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, renamed AZD1222.

Dr. Carina Joe invented the large-scale cGMP manufacturing process: “I am a lead scientist for upstream and downstream process development for large scale cGMP manufacturing for AZD1222. Our COVID-19 vaccine candidate was approved in December 2020 and itis now being produced in many cGMP labs worldwide.”

Challenges

When developing their COVID-19 vaccine, The Jenner Institute works primarily with the T-REx™-293 cell line for vaccine expression studies. They found cell counting challenging because the T-REx™-293 cell line aggregates at high densities.

The previous instruments they had used were producing inconsistent results and did not provide the required precision, making process control and standardization difficult.

Looking for alternatives, they tested the NucleoCounter® NC-202™ and found its precision and consistency in counting aggregated cells to be superior.

User commentary

“I chose the NucleoCounter® NC-202™ because of its precision in cell counting, and because it is smaller compared to the other cell counters on the market. I work with mammalian cells that grow to a very high cell density, at which they tend to aggregate.

NC-202™ gives a very precise measure for aggregated cells with minimal error.”

Dr. Carina Joe, Lead Scientist, The Jenner Institute, University of Oxford.

Learn more about The Jenner Institute.