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Project

Pharma4S - Advanced Optimisation of Recombinant Protein Bioproduction: Multi-Scale Systems Biology Study for Pharmaceutical Proteins

The production of proteins by using genetically modified organisms has become a multibillion-euro industry thanks to the multitude of applications. Specifically in the pharmaceutical industry, proteins are being produced in this manner to obtain a reliable and cost-efficient production process. However, the optimisation of these complex production processes is not yet taking advantage of the state-of-theart computational techniques that are available nowadays due to the difficulties in implementing these techniques in practice. Therefore, the current project will study how to optimise the production of proteins through a specific genetically modified yeast, called Pichia pastoris, which will be modified to produce three highly relevant pharmaceutical proteins. Specifically, this study will develop a method to apply fundamental knowledge on the metabolism of Pichia pastoris towards the optimisation of this process. This fundamental knowledge will be enriched based on experimental data that will be gathered on the metabolism of the yeast during protein production in lab-scale bioreactors. Moreover, mathematical models will be made that describe this production process and that can be applied for its further optimisation. This project will lead to a general method that will allow the optimisation of uncountable similar bioproduction processes.

Date:1 Jan 2021 →  Today
Keywords:Systems biology, Multi-scale modeling, Process Systems Engineering
Disciplines:Automation and control systems, Process control, (Bio)chemical reactors, Systems theory, modelling and identification, Fermentation