- Berkeley Lights' proprietary technology, the Beacon(R) optofluidic platform, 
is currently used by researchers across three continents—the U.S., China, and 
Australia—to help them find solutions for the Coronavirus

Berkeley Lights, Inc., a leader in cell selection, is currently engaged with 
universities and medical centers in the U.S., China, and Australia who are 
looking to create vaccines and therapeutics for the treatment of COVID-19, the 
disease caused by the SARS-CoV2 virus or, simply, Coronavirus. Using Berkeley 
Lights' proprietary technology, the Beacon(R) optofluidic platform, Vanderbilt 
University Medical Center (VUMC) and GenScript China are currently screening 
patient blood samples to find the necessary antibodies required to help develop 
a solution to the Coronavirus, while researchers at the University of 
Queensland in Australia are evaluating the Beacon platform as a means to 
expedite development of their recombinant subunit vaccine program.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1078159/Berkeley_Lights_Logo.jpg 

The Vanderbilt Vaccine Center (VVC) is one of the lead sites within the DARPA 
Pandemic Prevention Platform Program (P3). Given its history of increased speed 
to therapy with the Zika and other viral targets, the VVC has been selected by 
DARPA to be a primary site in the U.S. for the development of novel 
antibody-based therapeutics for the prevention of SARS-CoV2 infection. The VVC 
recently began receiving crucial human samples from recovered patients which 
will be screened using Berkeley Lights' Beacon platform to enable the discovery 
of protective antibodies.

"The Beacon platform allows us to use B-cells in a single cell assay, enabling 
exploration of a much greater diversity of potentially protective antibodies, 
helping us more quickly identify the best antibodies," said Dr. Robert 
Carnahan, project lead for the Crowe Lab at VUMC.  

In Australia, the University of Queensland is one of several groups selected ( 
https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2733690-1&h=895859071&u=https%3A%2F%2Fcepi.net%2Fnews_cepi%2Fcepi-to-fund-three-programmes-to-develop-vaccines-against-the-novel-coronavirus-ncov-2019%2F&a=selected 
) by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to develop a 
Coronavirus vaccine as a result of its recently released rapid response 
technology ( 
https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2733690-1&h=3595947374&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.uq.edu.au%2Fnews%2Farticle%2F2019%2F01%2Fpartnership-supercharge-vaccine-production&a=technology 
). The University is assessing the Beacon platform as it looks to find ways to 
accelerate early development toward clinical testing.  

"The Beacon platform helps us to be manufacturing-ready more rapidly than use 
of traditional approaches, potentially saving months off our timeline," said 
Dr. Trent Munro, Director of the National Biologics Facility and Program 
Director for the CEPI-funded Vaccine Rapid Response pipeline at the University 
of Queensland. "As we are seeing, every day matters in our response to the 
COVID-19 outbreak and we are hopeful this approach will be enabling for future 
vaccine production." 

Additionally, GenScript Biotech Corporation announced ( 
https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=2733690-1&h=2264851005&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.prnewswire.com%2Fnews-releases%2Fgenscript-probio-screens-anti-2019-ncov-antibodies-in-just-24-hours-301000362.html&a=announced 
) in early February that its researchers have successfully screened and 
identified antibodies for COVID-19 in less than 24 hours with the Beacon 
platform. This process usually takes three months using traditional hybridoma 
antibody screening. This is a huge breakthrough in fighting outbreaks faster 
and finding preventive and therapeutic treatment, specifically for Coronavirus.

About Berkeley Lights
Here at Berkeley Lights, we think cells are awesome! Cells are capable of 
manufacturing cures for diseases, fibers for clothing, energy in the form of 
biofuels, and food proteins for nutrition. So the question is, if nature is 
capable of manufacturing the products we need in a scalable way, why aren't we 
doing more of this? Well, the answer is that with the solutions available 
today, it is hard. It takes a long time to find the right cell for a specific 
job, costs lots of money, and if you have picked a suboptimal cell line, has a 
very low process yield. Berkeley Lights has the complete solution to find the 
best cells by functionally screening and recovering individual cells for 
antibody discovery, cell line development, T cell analysis, and synthetic 
biology. Our proprietary technology and Beacon(R) and Lightning(TM) platforms 
accelerate the rate you can discover and develop cell-based products in a 
fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of conventional, legacy 
research methods. Using our tools and solutions, scientists can find the best 
cells, the first time they look. For more information, visit 
www.berkeleylights.com.

Berkeley Lights' Beacon and Lightning platforms and Culture Station Instrument 
are: 
For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures. 

Press Contact:
berkeleylights@bulleitgroup.com 

SOURCE:  Berkeley Lights, Inc.