Expanding T cell-based therapies with human platelet lysate

Expansion of T cells ex vivo holds great promise in regenerative medicine for treating cancer and autoimmune diseases. Despite the great therapeutic value of culturing T cells, today much of the T cell culture for research and therapeutic development is performed using cell culture media supplemented with fetal bovine serum (FBS) or human AB serum.  

This research spotlight highlights work from Mill Creek Life Sciences where they demonstrated human platelet lysate to be a superior culture supplement for the expansion of T cells. This is critical for researchers work with cell-based therapies, including T cell and CAR-T therapies. Specifically, PLTGold human platelet lysate efficiently promotes T cell expansion, generating higher cell yields and lower cell exhaustion rates which ultimately helps bioprocessing and manufacturing workflows to enable highly proliferative, healthy, and safe cells for therapeutic use. 

The Spotlight

Keywords: Cell therapy, T cell isolation, T cell culture, T cell expansion, cell expansion, gene editing, CAR-T, CRISPR, clinical cell culture

Cell type(s): T cells, CAR-T cells

Experiment purpose: Expansion of T cells using human platelet lysate shows unprecedented levels of growth and expansion, improving the performance of cultures for cell-based products. 

Product highlights:

PLTGold® Human Platelet Lysate
PLTGold is a next generation, growth factor rich, xeno-free, heparin-free supplement that is a superior alternative to FBS or human AB serum. PLTGold is available in research and clinical grade formats.

PLTGold® Human Platelet Lysate, Gamma Irradiated
PLTGold-GI is a clinical grade pathogen reduced product that has undergone gamma irradiation at a dose of 25-38 kGy. Ideal for therapeutic research and clinical trials.

References: Alonso-Camino et al. Expansion of different types of therapeutic cells using xenogenic free and gamma irradiated human platelet lysate. 2022. Mill Creek Life Sciences. Scientific. Poster.

Conclusion

Today, several studies around the world are using HPL to expand T cells and to develop CAR-T based
cancer therapies. Results in this latest poster show unprecedented levels of cell quality and culture efficiency when using PLTGold-GI HPL. With the high level of safety surrounding the need for pathogen-inactivated and gamma-irradiated media supplements, PLTGold-GI sets the bar for an ideal culture supplement for T cell and CAR-T based therapy bioprocessing and manufacturing.

Learn more about Human Platelet Lysate here.

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Image source: T cell expansion in a vertical wheel bioreactor using the previously validated media formulation with 5% PLTGold-GI, yields exceedingly high cell numbers at only day 6 in culture from Mill Creek Life Sciences.