Protein nucleation and crystallisation on novel 3-D templates

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The crystallisation of biopharmaceuticals is poorly understood and is a rarely used commercial process for the primary separation and purification of proteins. This proposal describes a fundamental investigation into the nucleation and crystallisation of proteins via the development of novel solid templates with known surface chemistry and topography for their controlled heterogeneous nucleation and crystal growth. These templates will enhance the success rates for protein crystallisation/ nucleation, allowing an improved understanding of both processes as well as potentially forming the basis for the development of industrial bio-crystallisation processes. This proposal represents the first step towards a major new downstream opportunity for biopharmaceutical manufacturing, providing potentially major cost and productivity benefits in product separation and purification, as well as the major product stability and delivery advantages offered by crystalline products over traditional product/dosage forms. The ultimate success of this strategy would give the UK industry an international competitive advantage in biopharmaceutical processing.