Take a Walk on the Lab side: a Virtual Field Trip to Amgen
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Are you interested in seeing the inside of a lab but don’t know anyone who could get you inside one?
Amgen’s Virtual Lab can give you a fascinating look into what goes on in a production laboratory.
The website walks the viewer through the process of Gene to Medicine with a mixture of: 1) videos of actual Amgen employees, 2) descriptions of the step being viewed, and 3) pictures of the equipment and processes being described. Cell culture, protein recovery and purification, and finally formulation to distribution are described with plenty of real world details.
Here's what you'll see:
Process development: cells from the cell bank are grown in flasks to start the process.
Seeding - is the process growing cells and transferring them to successively larger reactors.
Production - at this point the cells are grown in the largest size of bioreactors. The environment is carefully controlled so that cells produce as much protein as possible.
Purification - this part shows 20 thousand liter buffer tanks. The buffer is used in protein purification.
Harvest - this is where proteins are separated from the cells
Purification - the protein is purified using liquid chromatography
Quality testing - several tests are used to measure product quality
Filling & accumulation - the protein is formulated and filled into packages and added to materials that improve storage
Inspection - every batch of product is tested and inspected.
Assembly and labeling - product is filled inside vials and syringes
Packaging - the vials of product are placed inside of packaging
Distribution - packaged product is shipped to customers
