Irradiated Feeder Cell induced NK Cell Expansion Service

The clinical translation of NK cell-based immunotherapies is often hindered by limitations in achieving robust, large-scale expansion while maintaining high product purity, potent cytotoxicity, and in vivo persistence. Creative Biolabs' Irradiated Feeder Cell-Induced NK Cell Expansion Technology overcomes these barriers by utilizing irradiated, engineered feeder cells to deliver synergistic activation signals through receptors. This approach enables greater than thousand-fold NK cell expansion under optimized conditions, significantly enhancing cytolytic activity, cytokine secretion, and functional persistence, all while eliminating the tumorigenic risks associated with conventional feeder systems.

Introduction

Feeder cells, through cell surface receptor-ligand interactions and cytokine support, provide a potent ex vivo stimulus that drives the robust activation and proliferation of NK cells. This approach not only enables the attainment of clinically relevant NK cell numbers from limited starting materials but also profoundly enhances the cells' cytotoxic potential and facilitates efficient genetic engineering. The irradiated feeder cell-induced NK cell expansion technology, wherein feeder cells are γ-irradiated prior to co-culture to prevent their proliferation and potential contamination of the final product, serves as the cornerstone for the clinical-scale manufacturing of both unmodified and genome-edited NK cell therapies.

Fig.1 Key factors and traits of feeder-expanded natural killer cells.¹

Irradiated Feeder Cell-Induced NK Cell Expansion Technology at Creative Biolabs

Creative Biolabs' Irradiated Feeder Cell-Induced NK Cell Expansion Technology provides a platform for the large-scale production of highly functional NK cells. It employs irradiated feeder cells to provide a potent, synergistic activation signal while eliminating the safety concerns of conventional methods. We achieve robust, thousand-fold expansions of NK cells with superior cytotoxic potency, cytokine production, and enhanced persistence.

What we can offer

Our service provides a robust, scalable solution to overcome the critical bottlenecks in clinical NK cell therapy. By combining proven biological principles with advanced engineering and optimized protocols, we deliver high-purity, high-potency, and high-yield NK cell products ready to address both hematological and solid tumor challenges.

Our Service Process

Our detailed workflow is designed to maximize NK cell yield and purity while maintaining full traceability and process control.

Required starting materials:

• Cell Source: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from qualified donors or umbilical cord blood (UCB) units that meet established collection and storage standards.
• Target Product Profile (TPP): Defined critical quality attributes (CQAs) for the final product, including cell dose, purity, viability, and key functional assays assessing cytotoxicity, proliferative capacity, and persistence.
• Genetic Modification Strategy (if applicable): For engineered NK cell production, detailed genetic elements must be provided, such as a lentiviral vector encoding a CAR or specific gene editing target sequences.

Final Deliverables:

• Detailed reports: A detailed documentation on cell yield, viability, and immunophenotype.
• Cytotoxicity and Functionality Data: Raw and analyzed data demonstrating in vitro killing activity against target cell lines.

Key Advantages

• Supreme Purity & Potency: We achieve highly pure NK cell populations with potent cytotoxicity, critical for clinical success. Our methods support the efficient genetic transduction required for next-generation CAR-NK therapies.
• Custom Feeder Systems: We have proprietary and optimized engineered feeder cells (e.g., expressing combinations of 4-1BBL, mbIL-15/IL-21).
• Solid Tumor Focus: Our high-potency products are optimized for combination with strategies like radiotherapy, essential for overcoming the immunosuppressive microenvironment of solid tumors.

FAQ

Why Choose Us?

Creative Biolabs' NK cell expansion platform is built on two decades of immunological expertise, directly addressing the limitations identified in foundational research, such as the functional decline associated with NK cell irradiation. We achieve functional superiority and maximized persistence by optimizing co-stimulatory inputs and employing highly characterized feeder systems.

Customer Reviews

"Using Creative Biolabs' Irradiated Feeder Cell-Induced NK Cell Expansion Technology in our research has significantly improved the transduction efficiency of our novel CAR construct. The highly proliferative state of the expanded cells made lentiviral integration dramatically more successful compared to standard IL-2 culture methods, which was a critical bottleneck for us."— Dr. H***g, Cell Therapy Developer.

"The cells expanded using Creative Biolabs' system showed superior cytotoxic function against solid tumor cell lines in vitro, necessary for our planned combination therapy study. We compared them against an irradiated NK cell equivalent and found the Creative Biolabs product retained significantly higher serial killing capacity, addressing the core limitation of older cell lines."— A. T***e, Lead Research Scientist.

How to contact us?

We invite you to explore how our advanced NK cell manufacturing platform can accelerate the development of your therapeutic pipeline. To unlock its potential for your specific programs, we welcome the opportunity to engage in a technical consultation.

Partner with our team to unlock the full potential of your project.

Reference

1. Huang, Ting et al. "CAR-macrophage: Breaking new ground in cellular immunotherapy." Frontiers in cell and developmental biology vol. 12 1464218. Distributed under Open Access License CC BY 4.0, without modification. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2024.1464218.