Cell-free glycoprotein synthesis

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The varying success rates of cancer treatments demonstrate that one size does not fit all when it comes to therapeutic interventions. This is confirmed by the discovery of multiple genes that are responsible for the same disease, which determine how severely an individual may be impacted. If disease profiles are specific to an individual or a group of patients, then treatment regimes also need to be individualised, a concept known as personalised medicine. But if medicines like advanced therapies using antibodies to target cancer cells are to be personalised, this means we need to have a way to rapidly produce and assess different candidates at a relatively small scale compared to current mass production strategies. Currently, these antibodies and other therapeutic proteins are produced in living cells. This makes their production process both laborious and time consuming. It also means that the large investment necessary for production does not necessarily make it worthwhile to develop individualised solutions. We have developed an alternative approach to the production of these medicines that does not involve cells in their living state. Instead we grow the cells in large batches and then extract their machinery and freeze it. We can then use it on-demand to make any protein at small (or even large) scale for testing. In this project, we will work in collaboration with AstraZeneca to develop a more productive version of our approach, which reduces the cost of production. We will do this by modifying the cells before extracting their machinery so that the latter can make more protein. Finally, we will test the quality of our antibody products and compare it to that of cell-produced material.