Ensights

Here’s a challenge, say the number 9 out loud, nine times. 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9.

To wrap up the Year of the Tiger (2022), there are still lessons to be learned from the animal kingdom. A tiger out in the open roaming the savannah is at risk of injuries from predators, including human hunters. Wafers left out in the open in a fab are susceptible to damage that can cause dramatic yield drops. The larger the wafer diameter, the greater the risk.

As the chief technologist for the Life Sciences Division at Trane Technologies, Scott Farrar knows a thing or two about ultra-low temperature control for the life sciences industry, perhaps drawing inspiration from his days at Penn State University enjoying peach ice cream. Scott’s biggest inspiration, however, was his entrepreneurial dad who started a solar equipment company, teaching Scott from a young age the importance of sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and solving problems. Scott carried those tools with him, and upon completing his formal education, went to work for a pharmaceutical manufacturing company in research and development, specializing in low-temp freezers and incubators as well as heat-momentum and mass-transfer-type processes for the pharmaceutical industry. His exposure to dilemmas and investigative approach is what drove him to create better customer experiences.

Like the human body, cell and gene therapy is complex. Specialized cells can be lost through age, injury or disease, and such loss cannot always be replenished by healthy cells, rendering the patient extremely sick or even fatally ill. In many cases, the patient has minimal time to live, with very few cells for transplantation. Thanks to advances in both cell and gene therapies, patients have options as these interventions continue to advance. Cellular therapy includes immunotherapies, vaccinations, and cancer vaccines. While gene therapy aims to modify or alter the biological properties of living cells for therapeutic use. As these interventions are distinct, their manufacturing processes often intersect, leaving opportunities for therapeutic enablement.

What do plasma chamber components have to do with deer or wild boar? These animals are potential sources of food for the tiger. The components are potential sources of contamination in the fab. Success in both cases relies on attention to detail and a flexible strategy. Whether you are chasing prey or particle contamination, a multi-pronged approach is best.

Inconsistent results and deviation are major issues in cell therapy manufacturing, primarily resulting from historically manual methods, scarcity of proprietary tools, and lack of operator training. With this difficult process also comes another hurdle–time. Providing a safe vein-to-vein transmission is critical when a patient is waiting (in many cases) for lifesaving therapy. How can we bridge the gap between speed, quality, safety, and consistency?

Within the life sciences industry, controlling biological and micro contaminants in process streams is vital to improving operating efficiency and the enablement of technological advances such as modern drug development and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Sterile filtration plays a critical role in protecting vital bioprocesses and is the cornerstone in eliminating contaminants. But what happens when a filter gets plugged and how can you minimize impact on filtration performance?

Entegris is proud to collaborate with Kuhner Shaker in the development of a 2500L single-use bag that could exceed their complex requirements while meeting their production needs at scale. Delivering a reproducible product every time, with the ability for specialized applications across scales is what Entegris does best, and this joint effort is no exception. Kuhner evaluated several bag designs for robustness in their 30-day shaking process that were not able to meet the requirements. The Entegris design not only met the need for 30 days of use but was still going strong over 100 days of continuous use.

Entegris is proud to announce a new relationship with Farrar Scientific, by Trane Technologies – a global climate innovator. Farrar offers best-in-class operating systems for ultra-cold temperature storage and controlled rate freeze/thaw chambers for pharmaceutical, biotech, and biorepository applications. Entegris offers the best-in-class Aramus™ bag for robust cold storage and transport. Collaborating with Farrar enables Entegris to offer a combined solution that accelerates the freeze/thaw process.

Entegris is proud to announce a new relationship with HOF Sonderanlagenbau GmbH, an international provider of freeze/thaw equipment and special solutions for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Entegris offers the best-in-class Aramus™ bag for robust cold storage and transport.

Summer is the perfect season to enjoy the great outdoors with friends and family. Unless, of course, the air is filled with smoke and ash. The color-coded air quality readings too often go beyond the red danger zone into purple, with an Air Quality Index (AQI) of over 200 parts per million (ppm) of particulate contamination. This particulate count is far above what is safe even for healthy adults. In many parts of the western U.S. and beyond, purple air has become far too familiar.

The explosion of data generation has been accompanied by a corresponding explosion of memory storage technology options. The array of acronyms is astounding—NAND, DRAM, SRAM, MRAM, PCRAM—and finding the right option can be complicated. For applications that need nonvolatile memory with high switching speed and fast data access, storage class memory (SCM) can be a perfect fit.