How hamsters and their wheels may be used to improve the mediciation crisis
Faglige nøgleord: Bioengineering, Biotherapeutics Production, Molecular Biology, Chinese Hamster, Ovary cells
Oplæg tilgængeligt på: Dansk og engelsk
Much modern medicine, such as antibodies, are produced in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells, a mammalian immortalized cell line derived from the epithelial cells of the ovary of the Chinese hamster. The production of such medicines are costly and have been optimized on for decades, but with much focus not being on the cells themselves for optimization. Now, as technology has progressed, we have the opportunity to the transcriptome of single cells and couple it to their production ability. In short, my research project makes use of so-called "nanovials", hydrogels that can be likened to small plastic balls that can accommodate exactly one CHO cell pr nanovial. By loading CHO cells into nanovials, sort of like a hamster in a wheel, we may identify which genetic markers and traits are associated with the best producer phenotypes, i.e. the cells that produce the most, and the best, product. The aim is to then take those genetic traits, introduce them into less efficient producers to create homogenous pools of high quality CHO producers. It is estimated that approximately 300-400 million people live with untreated rare diseases, that one billion people live with neglected tropical diseases, and up to two billion people do not have proper access to the medication that they need. As CHO cells excel in producing complex human medicine, improving their overall production ability may greatly decrease production costs through various means. This may incentivize the biotherapeutics industry to produce more rare medicine that was previously deemed financially irresponsible to produce, and allow the industry to produce greater amounts of complex medicines at the same speed, if not faster, than is the case today. In conclusion, more patients all over the globe may receive access to life-improving, and life-saving, medicine they may not have access to today.
I did my high school at HTX H.C. Ørsted Gymnasiet Ballerup from 2014-2017 and went straight into the bachelor's programme of Molecular Biomedicine at the University of Copenhagen. Originally I had hope to become a professional football player, but injuries got in the way of that (which I'll happily talk about, too). After graduating my bachelor's in 2020, I also did my master's in Molecular Biomedicine from 2020-2022 doing research on Parkinson's Disease. Then, I felt like I needed a break and took a 3 month period of relaxation before being hired at Agilent Technologies in a biotherapeutics production setting, which lasted about 2 months as I then moved to Novo Nordisk to do research. There, I did stem cell research for a year, trying to create cells for patients suffering from hearing loss, before moving to emerging drug research pre-animal testing. After one and a half years there, I felt like I needed a change of environment and became a PhD student at DTU.