Distinguished McNight Professor Wei-Shou Hu (BTI/CEMS) is leading a new Consortium for Chinese Hamster Ovary Cell Systems Biotechnology formed under the auspices of the Society of Biological Engineering. This new consortium of seven pharmaceutical companies from USA, Europe and Japan is built upon work of the proceedings of the Consortium of Chinese Hamster Ovary Cell Genomics from 2006-2010, which completed sequencing of the Chinese hamster genome and developed platforms for genome scale analysis.

The Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell line is used in the production of over 70% of all biologics, valued at over $40 billion per annum.  The new effort aims to harness the genomic information and further advance our understanding of cell line production, productivity and product quality and to facilitate member companies entering the post-genomics era of biologics manufacturing.