Protein Precipitation for the Purification of Therapeutic Protein

摘要

This thesis documents the application of precipitant scouting and analytical tools for the development of a precipitation process for the purification of therapeutic proteins in biopharmaceuticals. Precipitation has the potential to bypass the bottlenecks in productivity experienced with packed bed chromatographic separations, offering a fast, robust first purification step with volume reduction at low cost. In order to evaluate a large number of precipitation candidates, microscale investigations aided by automated liquid handling robotics were chosen, which conferred precision, speed, and complex experimental design with microliter material requirements and in-line analytics. A precipitation screening methodology was successfully built onto a Tecan liquid handling platform including product recovery and techniques for measuring soluble protein, liquid volumes, and recovered protein precipitate. The protocol was supplemented with a custombuild Excel VBA driven Tecan control tool. This accelerated progress by freeing up the potential of the liquid handling arm, which was curtailed by system software. These techniques were then used to characterise effective precipitants for the purification of monoclonal antibodies. Optimal conditions were identified on pure protein models, which were the bridged to process relevant cell culture fluid. Process performance, notably recovery yield and product quality were the investigated on the precipitant conditions brought forward. Process integration aspects were explored, by linking precipitation with an anion exchange chromatography step. This led to discussion on future work and process scale up considerations.