Abcam has announced the opening of a 16,000 sqft facility in Fremont, CA, which will serve as a major site for its specialist cell engineering team. The facility will enable delivery of engineered cell lines to power expansion of the company’s ready-to-use portfolio and facilitate delivery of customisation to meet research, diagnostic and therapeutic development needs.
The move follows Abcam’s acquisition of the team and its CRISPR-Cas9-based gene editing platform from Applied Stem Cell earlier this year. The facility has received investment from the business and features a suite of tissue culture labs.
This development builds upon Abcam’s previous acquisition of a range of knockout cell lines from Edigene last year. Ready-made KO cell lines play a role in the study and understanding of biological pathways and disease models. Abcam’s gene-edited cell line portfolio and engineering capability is also supporting the company’s knockout validation initiative, an integral part of the organization’s ongoing efforts to raise reagent quality standards across the industry.
Jac Price, SVP Manufacturing and Supply Chain at Abcam, said: “We are excited to be part of the active and growing biotech community in Fremont with our newest, customized facility. Our cell engineering team are highly experienced and a long-established leader in the edited cell lines market. This facility will enable them to further expand and increase the provision of a comprehensive cell engineering service for a variety of different life sciences applications, at both speed and scale.”