Preparation and Characterization of Grafted Adsorbents and their Applications in Biomolecule Purification
- This doctoral research focuses on the preparation and characterization of grafted adsorbents and their performance evaluation as chromatography adsorbents for the purification of biomolecules. Most downstream bioprocesses include several chromatographic steps amongst other traditional purification steps in order to produce highly purified bioproducts like plasmid DNA, virus-like particles, and monoclonal antibodies. Currently, there is an enormous demand for developing innovative and cost-effective bioprocessing techniques for reducing production costs, which mostly lie in downstream bioprocessing (up to 80% of the entire production cost). In recent years, fiber-based and cryogel-based adsorbents have been promoted as an additional alternative to conventional packed-bed resins. Cryogels are the product of cryogelation technology, having interconnected macropores in the range of 10--200 um. Due to the macroporous structures, efficient mass transfer and good flow through properties are expected. The macroporous nature and the different chemistry embedded within the cryogels plays a significant role in separating a broad range of therapeutic biomolecules. Even, fiber-based materials also show excellent physicochemical properties and offer several advantages, including large surface areas, high swelling capacities, mechanically robustness, and convenient usage.
Although the potentials for cryogel- and fiber-based are high, the lower binding capacity of these adsorbents compared to resin-based adsorbents has hampered their usage as a chromatography adsorbents. The primary objectives of my dissertation was to investigate how grafting initiation techniques influences the binding capacities of surface-modified adsorbents.
