Implications Of The Caacb Virus Contamination In Biomanufacturing Project For Cell Therapy Manufacturers

Adventitious agent contamination of cell culture-based biomanufacturing operations for the production of protein and monoclonal antibody biotherapeutics are infrequent, but when they do occur, they are very costly, impact manufacturing operations, and can potentially impact patient safety and product supply. In response to this need, the MIT Consortium on Adventitious Agent Contamination in Biomanufacturing (CAACB) began the confidential collection and analysis of industry-wide viral contamination data with an emphasis on “lessons learned”. This presentation will cover the learnings from this study, including identified industry risks and best practices to mitigate those risks. Some of the key findings which have significant implications to the emerging cell therapy industry are: 1) Raw materials, including non-animal-based raw materials, may be a potential source of viral contamination and stringent raw material testing and vendor selection and auditing programs are critical. 2) Traditional viral tests, including in vitro testing and PCR, have contributed to false-positive events, which may take extended times to resolve prior to release of raw materials, process intermediates, or final product. 3) The time frames needed for viral testing in general, and for investigation of positive viral tests, can range from weeks to months, and are not compatible with the requirements for near real-time release testing for some cell therapy products. 4) Viral testing programs, and potential investigations of positive results, are quite expensive, and application to the autologous cell therapy space will be challenging

Selective functionalization of carbon nanotubes

The present invention is directed toward methods of selectively functionalizing carbon nanotubes of a specific type or range of types, based on their electronic properties, using diazonium chemistry. The present invention is also directed toward methods of separating carbon nanotubes into populations of specific types or range(s) of types via selective functionalization and electrophoresis, and also to the novel compositions generated by such separations

Methods for selective functionalization and separation of carbon nanotubes

The present invention is directed toward methods of selectively functionalizing carbon nanotubes of a specific type or range of types, based on their electronic properties, using diazonium chemistry. The present invention is also directed toward methods of separating carbon nanotubes into populations of specific types or range(s) of types via selective functionalization and electrophoresis, and also to the novel compositions generated by such separations

Mechanistic modeling to predict titers and infected cells in the two-stage continuous production of a viral vaccine

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Allocation under dictatorship : research in Stalin’s archives

We survey recent research on the Soviet economy in the state, party, and military archives of the Stalin era. The archives have provided rich new evidence on the economic arrangements of a command system under a powerful dictator including Stalin’s role in the making of the economic system and economic policy, Stalin’s accumulation objectives and the constraints that limited his power to achieve them, the limits to administrative allocation, the information flows and incentives that governed the behavior of economic managers, the scope and significance of corruption and market-oriented behavior, and the prospects for economic reform

Biomanufacturing and testbed development for the continuous production of monoclonal antibodies

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Transverse spin effects in hadron-pair production from semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering

First measurements of azimuthal asymmetries in hadron-pair production in deep-inelastic scattering of muons on transversely polarised ^6LiD (deuteron) and NH_3 (proton) targets are presented. The data were taken in the years 2002-2004 and 2007 with the COMPASS spectrometer using a muon beam of 160 GeV/c at the CERN SPS. The asymmetries provide access to the transversity distribution functions, without involving the Collins effect as in single hadron production. The sizeable asymmetries measured on the NH_ target indicate non-vanishing u-quark transversity and two-hadron interference fragmentation functions. The small asymmetries measured on the ^6LiD target can be interpreted as indication for a cancellation of u- and d-quark transversities.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, updated to the published versio

Experimental investigation of transverse spin asymmetries in muon-p SIDIS processes: Collins asymmetries

The COMPASS Collaboration at CERN has measured the transverse spin azimuthal asymmetry of charged hadrons produced in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering using a 160 GeV positive muon beam and a transversely polarised NH_3 target. The Collins asymmetry of the proton was extracted in the Bjorken x range 0.003<x<0.7. These new measurements confirm with higher accuracy previous measurements from the COMPASS and HERMES collaborations, which exhibit a definite effect in the valence quark region. The asymmetries for negative and positive hadrons are similar in magnitude and opposite in sign. They are compatible with model calculations in which the u-quark transversity is opposite in sign and somewhat larger than the d-quark transversity distribution function. The asymmetry is extracted as a function of Bjorken $x$, the relative hadron energy $z$ and the hadron transverse momentum p_T^h. The high statistics and quality of the data also allow for more detailed investigations of the dependence on the kinematic variables. These studies confirm the leading-twist nature of the Collins asymmetry.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Search for Charginos with a Small Mass Difference with the Lightest Supersymmetric Particle at \sqrt{s} = 189 GeV

A search for charginos nearly mass-degenerate with the lightest supersymmetric particle is performed using the 176 pb^-1 of data collected at 189 GeV in 1998 with the L3 detector. Mass differences between the chargino and the lightest supersymmetric particle below 4 GeV are considered. The presence of a high transverse momentum photon is required to single out the signal from the photon-photon interaction background. No evidence for charginos is found and upper limits on the cross section for chargino pair production are set. For the first time, in the case of heavy scalar leptons, chargino mass limits are obtained for any \tilde{\chi}^{+-}_1 - \tilde{\chi}^0_1 mass difference

A new measurement of the Collins and Sivers asymmetries on a transversely polarised deuteron target

New high precision measurements of the Collins and Sivers asymmetries of charged hadrons produced in deep-inelastic scattering of muons on a transversely polarised 6LiD target are presented. The data were taken in 2003 and 2004 with the COMPASS spectrometer using the muon beam of the CERN SPS at 160 GeV/c. Both the Collins and Sivers asymmetries turn out to be compatible with zero, within the present statistical errors, which are more than a factor of 2 smaller than those of the published COMPASS results from the 2002 data. The final results from the 2002, 2003 and 2004 runs are compared with naive expectations and with existing model calculations.Comment: 40 pages, 28 figure