Oct 27 – Seminar – “Recent Developments in Downstream Bioprocessing: Multimodal Chromatography, Affinity Precipitation and Integrated Bioprocessing” by Steven Cramer, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Host: Tom Truskett

ABSTRACT:

This presentation will focus on recent developments in our lab in three areas of downstream bioprocessing; multimodal chromatography, affinity precipitation and integrated bioprocessing. Fundamental studies into the nature of selectivity in multimodal chromatography will first be presented. This work will include chromatographic studies with various protein and multimodal ligand libraries, all-atom explicit Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations and a range of biophysical studies to shed insight into the underlying nature of selectivity in these important new classes of chromatographic materials. New predictive approaches will also be presented including course grained protein binding maps and quantitative structure activity relationship (QSAR) models using new classes protein molecular descriptors. Work will then be presented on affinity precipitation using smart biopolymers for the simultaneous recovery and purification of biological products. ELP-Z is employed for mAb purification and the process is shown to result in more than 2 logs of HCP and more than 4 logs of DNA clearance from the harvest feed with clearance and yield values comparable or superior to Protein A chromatography. Scale-up of the ELP-Z based mAb affinity precipitation process is successfully carried out using a combination of tangential flow microfiltration and dead end filtration for the recovery of the precipitates. This process is then extended to ELP-affinity peptides and proof of concept is demonstrated with two peptide affinity systems. Finally, some results are presented on the development of integrated biomanufacturing systems using both affinity peptide capture as well as an optimized series of multimodal chromatographic operations.

BIOGRAPHY:

Steven Cramer is the William Weightman Walker Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.  Prof. Cramer is a bioprocessing downstream expert whose research focuses on applying fundamental understanding of biomolecular interactions towards the development of novel chromatographic and precipitation protein separation processes. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the International journal Separations, Science and Technology for 20 years. Professor Cramer was the awarded the Alan S. Michaels Award for the Recovery of Biological Products (ACS Division of Biochemical Technology) and the 2016 ACS National Award in Separation Science and Technology. He was also awarded Rensselaer’s School of Engineering Outstanding Professor Award and the Research Excellence Award. Dr. Cramer was given a Presidential Young Investigator award from the National Science Foundation, the Early Career Award from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as well as several teaching awards.  Professor Cramer has been elected a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Chemical Society and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. He has chaired several prestigious meetings including 2 International HIC/RPC Bioseparation Conferences, 2 ACS Recovery of Biological Products Meetings and the Gordon Conference on Reactive Polymers. Prof. Cramer is a consultant for several biopharmaceutical and bioseparation companies. He is also serving on the FDA panel for biosimilars. Prof. Cramer has published over 180 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has 11 patents. Importantly, he has produced 41 Ph.D. students who have gone on to leadership positions in the biotechnology industry and academia.