Professor Croughan to Discuss 25 Years of CHO Cell Culture at International Conference
CLAREMONT, Calif., April 9 2008 – Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) today announced that Dr. Matthew Croughan, KGI’s George B. and Joy Rathmann professor and director of the Amgen Bioprocessing Center, will present a keynote talk on 25 years of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell culture achievements at the Cell Culture Engineering XI Conference at 6:30 pm AEST on Thursday, April 17, 2008, in Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.
“CHO cell culture has emerged as one of the dominant methods for production of recombinant proteins, especially high-dose therapeutic antibodies,” said Croughan. “The story behind this emergence should be viewed as one of the great case studies in new technology development.”
Annual sales of products made by CHO cells now exceed $30 billion. Amgen and Genentech make many of their products, including Enbrel (arthritis), Aranesp (kidney disease, anemia), Herceptin (breast cancer) and Rituxan (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma), from CHO cells.
In his keynote address, “The Silver Anniversary of Clinical Protein Production from Recombinant CHO Cell Culture,” Croughan will discuss the many challenges that have been overcome by scientists and engineers since 1983 when Genentech initiated the first human clinical trial of a therapeutic protein made in recombinant CHO cell culture.
In addition to his full-time teaching and research duties at KGI, Croughan continues to work as an independent consultant, providing expert guidance on biopharmaceutical process development and manufacturing issues for more than 40 firms including Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Maxygen, Alavita, Xoma and Schering-Plough.
Croughan was chief scientist for Genentech’s cell culture facility in Vacaville, CA, built for the production of therapeutic antibodies. Earlier at Genentech, he developed the first FDA-licensed, fed-batch CHO cell culture process, a breakthrough platform technology now used throughout the biopharmaceutical industry.
More information about the conference can be found on its web site.
KGI Background
Educating the future leaders of the bioscience industry, Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) offers an interdisciplinary graduate education through its Master of Bioscience (MBS) degree program and its Ph.D. program in Applied Life Sciences. Using team-based learning and real-world projects, KGI's innovative curriculum seamlessly combines applied life sciences, bioengineering, bioethics and business management. KGI also has a robust research program concentrating on the translation of basic discoveries in the life sciences into applications that can benefit society. KGI is a member of The Claremont Colleges, located in Claremont, California.
Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences is dedicated to education and research aimed at translating into practice, for the benefit of society, the power and potential of the life sciences.
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