Always Look on the Bright Side of (Cell) Death: Cytotoxicity Assays for Antibody Drug Conjugate Development

In this webinar, you will learn:

  • The benefits of drug screening in 3D cultures and how using optimized 3D cell-based assays address the challenges of measuring cell health in 3D cultures, leading to more effective assessment of key outcomes, such as viability and apoptosis 
  • The role of bioassays in ADC developability and lead selection
  • How complex co-culture and 3D in vitro models enable researchers to select the best candidate to take forward for clinical development

Summary

Abzena is a leading biopharmaceutical CDMO and CRO offering fully integrated, customized drug development and manufacturing services from early discovery to clinical trials. In this webinar, Darren Heywood from Promega will introduce plate-based cell health assays for drug development and screening in 3D cell cultures. Grant Harradence and Robert Francis, from Abzena, will discuss how Abzena applies developability principles throughout the discovery and development process, using two approved ADCs to demonstrate the robustness of bioassays in 3D cell culture models. Additionally, they will highlight a range of biological methods that help researchers select lead ADCs for further discovery, and how plate-based assays integrate with comprehensive bioassay assessments, including real-time imaging and microscopy techniques.

Speakers

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Darren Heywood, PhD
Product Manager, Cell Health
Promega UK

Darren received his PhD in Neurobiology from the University of Bristol in 2003. His research was focused on investigating the involvement of signaling pathways involved in mediating neuronal cell death. Currently, as a Product Manager at Promega UK, Darren manages the cell health portfolio and has a particular interest in tools to monitor 3D cell health. With the demand for more physiologically relevant models comes a need for more accurate and sensitive cell-based assays that can deliver reliable results in more complex 3D microtissues. Darren works to support customers who wish investigate cell health in both 2D and 3D cultures.
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Grant Harradence
Manager
Abzena

Grant joined Abzena in 2017 as a Scientist in the Bioassay team, working on cell based and immunochemical assays. As his role expanded, he worked on increasing Abzena’s capabilities by developing assays to monitor cell health in real time. Grant works closely with colleagues in the Chemistry department assessing ADCs for potency, as well as playing a key role in ADC developability programs. Prior to working at Abzena, Grant has previously worked at start-up, not-for-profit and large pharma organizations in a career spanning 20 years.
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Robert Francis, PhD
Manager and Microscopy Lead
Abzena

Robert is a manager and microscopy lead within Bioassay, Abzena. Ever since his undergraduate and PhD, he enjoys finding new possibilities for use, particularly observing and quantifying dynamic events in live cells. Prior to Abzena, Robert gained microscopy expertise working in postdocs and microscopy core facilities in academia at the University of Surrey and University College London, in government in the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and has been awarded a fellowship of the Royal Microscopical Society. Now using his expertise in microscopy at Abzena, Robert has led the integration of several microscopy offerings into the biologic and bioconjugate characterization workflow, establishing dynamic live cell assays essential for better understanding the results of plate-based testing.