Dr Qasim Rafiq awarded 拢1.45m EPSRC Fellowship for Cell and Gene Therapy Manufacture

8 March 2022

Dr Qasim Rafiq, Associate Professor in Cell and Gene Therapy Bioprocess Engineering, has been awarded a prestigious Early-Career Fellowship from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The five-year, 拢1.45m Fellowship entitled 鈥淪MARTCell: Scalable Manufacture of Advanced Regenerative Cellular Therapies鈥� will begin in June 2022 and enable Dr Rafiq to spend 50% of his time on establishing a scalable manufacturing process for allogeneic gene-modified cellular therapies

The aim is to demonstrate consistent, multi-litre scale production for cellular immunotherapies and builds on recent work developing an innovative and intelligent control strategy to improve the production process and increase the number of cells that can be manufactured.

Working with academic, clinical and industrial partners, Dr Rafiq鈥檚 Fellowship programme will address two critical manufacturing challenges: (1) developing an innovative, intelligent process control strategy to demonstrate the multi-litre scale production of cellular immunotherapies and, (2) developing a novel non-viral technology for improved gene delivery, avoiding the need for expensive and complex viral vectors.

The Fellowship will address the fundamental manufacturing and translational barriers associated with CGT manufacture, support the clinical community with new platform processes and technologies for developing future CGTs and strengthen the UK鈥檚 world leading position in the advanced CGT sector. 聽聽

This research complements and aligns with existing activity Dr Rafiq leads within the 拢10m EPSRC Future Targeted Healthcare Manufacturing Hub, the 鈧�10m Horizon Europe AIDPATH Project and the 拢4.5m BBSRC Collaborative Training Partnership doctoral programme in Advanced Bioscience of Viral Products (ABViP).

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