09/26/2023
By Zhiyong Gu
Assistant Teaching Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Time: Thursday, Sept. 28, 4-5 p.m.
Location: Shah Hall 310
Title: Utilizing microfluidic electrophoresis to analyze and quantify host cell proteins in CHO cell bioprocesses
Abstract:
The separation and quantification of host cell proteins during a monoclonal antibody production and purification process is of high importance. The FDA requires that host cell proteins must be purified to a target level at or below 100ppm in a final drug product, and, thus, it is important to be able to accurately quantify host cell proteins and to understand which purification processes are removing them. The purpose of this project was to develop two novel microfluidic devices for the separation, characterization, and quantification of specific host cell protein size ranges or populations. These two devices would be compared against a commercially available device for separation and characterization and ELISA quantification methods. The first newly developed device offers a “parallel line” style which can be used to characterize host cell proteins by size. The second newly developed device offers a “multi-outlet” style which can be used to quantify the specific host cell protein size populations. Both devices were able to repeatedly separate host cell proteins from different cell lines (both of CHO origin) and quantify the total host cell protein concentration within 10% of an ELISA assay. These newly developed devices offer enhanced design flexibility and competitive economics compared to commercially available devices.
Biography:
Caitlin Morris received her B.S. degree from the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 2018, and her Ph.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts in 2023. Both degrees were in Chemical Engineering. During her undergraduate career, Caitlin worked at Pfizer and Regeneron as a co-op student. During her Ph.D. work, under the supervision of Dr. Seongkyu Yoon, Caitlin focused on pharmaceutical drug process development. In addition, during her graduate career, Caitlin participated in a one-year fellowship at the Food and Drug Administration in Silver Springs, MD. Caitlin’s graduate work focused on utilizing both wet-lab approaches and computational approaches to optimize the usage of supernatant samples from Chinese Hamster Ovary cell culture processes. Her final thesis work focused on the development of a microfluidic device for host cell protein analysis. After her graduation, Caitlin joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at UML as an Assistant Teaching Professor.