University of Helsinki
Antibodies are one of the biggest industries in biotechnology, being essential not only in medicine but for many life-science related investigations. When manufacturing antibodies, quality is of upmost importance. With the Integrative Health Biosciences course, the students got the opportunity to visit Medix Biochemica, company specialized in the production of antibody-based test and bioreagents. During the visit, students could learn about the production process, quality control techniques and see the company’s facilities.
Antibodies are proteins that bind in a highly specific way to other proteins called antigens. Because of the specificity of this union, antibodies have a wide range of applications, from medical treatments (antibodies designed to fight infections) and testing (antibody kits to detect the presence of a specific substance in a sample) to purification of different drugs. Having all these different applications, the antibody industry is of upmost relevance in the life science field. The production of antibodies is a long, complex and expensive process that needs very strict quality control procedures, since small mistakes can heavily affect the efficiency of the end product.
Medix Biochemica is a company founded on 1985 and owned by the Minerva Foundation that focuses on the production of tests and bioreagents (antigens and antibodies). The bioreagents are used in the IVD industry (In Vitro Diagnosis). They offer a wide catalogue of antibodies and antigens, with specialization on tests destined to women’s health. With the Integrative Health Bioscience course, we had the opportunity to visit the company in Espoo and see how it is and how their products are manufactured.
It was really interesting to learn about the whole antibody and antigen production process from a company perspective, but the thing that impressed me the most was the incredible optimization of the laboratory space and the extreme organization of every single room. The laboratories were sorted by steps, in a way that one lab was right next to the lab where the next step would take place. Also, labs that required the use of the same machines were close to that equipment. Every single thing had its own place, and it was tagged, so that nothing gets lost and no time is spent trying to find lost items.
They also took extreme care in following SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) for every step of the process to ensure that the required quality was met. The hosts were proud to announce they have recently adopted the Japanese “five Ss system”, where the words seiri, seiton, seisō, seiketsu, and shitsuke stand for “Sorting”, “Setting in order”, “Shine”, “Standardization” and “Sustaining”. Visiting these facilities was probably the first time that I really understood how important it is to be familiar with the SOPs and with the quality control regulations and the documentation of every single step that it’s taken, as one little fail at documenting something or doing it wrong can mean that a whole batch of antibodies cannot be sold and all that money and resources employed are lost.
Also, hearing about the presenters’ experiences and career paths made me really consider working in a company instead of in a research group, as I always thought I would do. It is very important for life science students to experience first-hand what working at a company is, to know how to get there and to meet people that has been working both there and in academia. It is the only way of being informed well enough to take good decisions related to the career path that one wants to take.
– Carlos Lapedriza, IHB student and LSE blogger