The Duchossois Household Institute (DFI) on the College of Chicago can manufacture clinical-grade encapsulated micro organism – catalyzing alternatives to higher perceive the microbiome and its myriad of roles in human well being.
The primary of its variety at an instructional establishment, the DFI’s present Good Manufacturing Follow (cGMP) facility options bacterial manufacturing capabilities in an anaerobic surroundings for fermentation, lyophilization, and encapsulation of stay biotherapeutic merchandise.
“The DFI’s cGMP facility opens alternatives for researchers on the College of Chicago and different establishments to provoke research utilizing totally different bacterial consortia designed to deal with, forestall, or treatment numerous illnesses,” mentioned Eric Pamer, director of the DFI and professor within the departments of drugs, microbiology, and pathology. “The capability to fabricate stay biotherapeutic merchandise for Section 1 scientific trials distinguishes the College of Chicago and can result in microbiome augmentation therapies to enhance human well being.”
The ability options two cleanroom suites, every with monitored and managed temperature, humidity, differential stress, and airflow. Gear has been validated and calibrated for secure, efficient, and constant operation. A group of devoted operators, engineers, and scientists ensures security and aseptic requirements, and maintains high quality manufacturing processes and unit operation.
“The DFI cGMP facility is able to creating therapeutics for scientific trials unseen at every other educational establishment. We stay up for connecting with each educational and industrial companions to develop and manufacture life-saving bacterial consortia,” mentioned Ken Onishi, supervisor for enterprise growth and licensing on the College of Chicago’s Polsky Heart for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which helps know-how commercialization and {industry} partnerships.
The DFI’s first investigator-initiated, interventional scientific trial, in collaboration with clinicians at UChicago Medication, lately acquired UChicago IRB approval. As a part of this, the cGMP facility will manufacture 17 totally different micro organism strains for the remedy of sufferers with liver illness.
Robust ties with the Medical Heart supplies affected person entry for trial enrollment, amongst different advantages. These connections with cross-campus items, along with the DFI’s many assets, uniquely positions the College to ship the very best high quality care and industry-leading analysis.
Further DFI capabilities embody the Host-Microbe Metabolomics Facility, which makes use of mass spectrometry to determine metabolites; the Microbiome Metagenomics Facility, which supplies state-of-the-art sequencing providers; and the Symbiotic Bacterial Pressure Financial institution, which accommodates nearly 2,000 bacterial isolates obtained from wholesome human donors. These capabilities are supported by bioinformaticians who present complete computational information analyses, together with genome meeting and annotation.
