Lisa-Marie Herlevi

• In this work capacity constraints during downstream processing of biologics are addressed by development of novel platform for continuous and direct purification of target protein from unclarified feed (e.g. fermentation broth or cell culture). The work is focused on addressing hinderances observed in related work on truly continuous moving expanded or fluidized bed systems by establishing a novel platform referred as Fluidized Bed Riser Adsorption System (FBRAS) that is based on two distinct components: a) a co-current column where the feedstock and the adsorbent beads are contacted permitting simultaneous product capture and biomass removal. Within this section, the fluid velocity is considerably lower than the terminal settling velocity of the adsorbent particles, thus leading to increased residence time and increased contact time. b) A series of counter-current baffle-modified contactors/columns in series, allowing adsorbent washing, and efficient product elution and bead regeneration/re-equilibration due to restricted settling of adsorbent. The second part of this work is aimed to support the overall technology development with construction of novel resin materials suitable for continuous processing by exploiting double network (DN) strategy for co-polymerisation of agarose via hydrogen bonding induced by freeze-thaw (FT) method. The FBRAS was validated for continuous capture and concentration of lysozyme followed by implementation to an existing DSP routine for production of antifungal peptide in collaboration with Protera SAS.