Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT) services

CMaT graduate students enroll in a new CMaT-designed courses and complete mentored research experiences focused on cell manufacturing barriers as part of a program designed to train them in the key skill sets prioritized by our industry and clinical “good manufacturing practices” partners.

The goal of CMaT is to transform the production of cell-based therapeutics into a large-scale, low-cost, reproducible, and high-quality engineered manufacturing process for broad industry and clinical use. Specifially, three Engineered Systems (Test-Beds) are envisioned: Mesenchymal Stem/Stromal Cells (MSCs) to repair, regenerate, and restore diseased tissues and organs. T cell immunotherapies to cure cancer. Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-derived cardiac cells (iPSC-CM) to treat heart diseases. In each of these Test-Beds, CMaT will focus on three, synergistic technical innovation Thrusts: cell-omics for biomarker discovery (Thrust 1); rapid and reliable assessment of cell quality, i.e. potency and safety (Thrust 2); and process and systems engineering for scale-up or scale-out manufacturing (Thrust 3).

Over 25 companies and 15 academic institutions collaborated together with government agencies to produce a national roadmap on cell therapy manufacturing. The National Cell Manufacturing Consortium (NCMC) is the first U.S. based national consortium focused on developing, maturing, and implementing technologies that can enable large-scale, cost-effective manufacturing of therapeutic cells. NCMC is established through the Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (AMTech) grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST).

A key need for industry and practitioners in cell manufacturing is a diverse, inclusive, and well-trained workforce – both entry-level trainees and advanced-degree trainees.