Identify And Select Optimal CAR T Phenotypes

To identify T cells exhibiting phenotypes associated with effective anti-tumor immunity, you must be able to assess T cell functions—such as antigen-specific proliferation—at the single-cell level to account for the inherent heterogeneity of T cell populations. However, many of the methods currently used to measure single cell T cell proliferation are time-consuming and inefficient. More importantly, traditional methods cannot measure antigen-specific proliferation and then correlate that growth to other parameters such as cytokine secretion and cytotoxicity of the same cell. In addition, viability andexpansion of single T cells isolated by FACS is often low to moderate, due to their sensitivity to hydrodynamic stress and/or resulting low-density culture conditions.

The Berkeley Lights Opto™ Cell Therapy Development workflow addresses these shortcomings by facilitating the thorough characterization required for us to develop effective T cell therapies and understand the molecular mechanisms driving desired phenotypes:

In a single experiment, multiple assays can be performed simultaneously or in series on more than one thousand individual T cells to monitor cytotoxic activity and the secretion of multiple cytokines (polyfunctionality) for the same T cell. After characterization, single T cells can be recovered for genomic analysis or they can be expanded on the Berkeley Lights Platform to assess their proliferative potential.