Co-Located with BIOTECHNICA 2009, Europe's No.1 Event in Biotechnology and Life Sciences 

Day 1 |  Day 2

WEDNESDAY, 7 OCTOBER

Taking it to the Next Level

09:00-09:05 Chairperson’s Remarks

Alexei Yeliseev, Ph.D., Staff Scientist, LMBB, NIH/ NIAAA

09:05-09:35 Thermostabilisation Allows Purified GPCRs to be Used for Drug Discovery

Markus Koglin, Ph.D., Head, Structural Sciences Group, Heptares Therapeutics Limited

09:35-10:05 Production of Complex Biopharmaceuticals with Moss Bioreactors

Eva L. Decker, Ph.D., Researcher, Plant Biotechnology, Faculty of Biology, Freiburg University

The moss Physcomitrella patens is emerging as a highly beneficial alternative expression system for the production of complex recombinant pharmaceuticals (e.g. glycoproteins) for which tissue culture-based production in photobioreactors has been established. In contrast to microorganisms plants perform protein modifications strongly resembling those of human cells. However, certain plant-specific protein-linked sugar residues were shown to be immunogenic, a fact that restricts the use of plants in biopharmaceutical production. The availability of the moss genome sequence facilitated the identification of genomic loci for enzymes involved in plant-specific modifications. Using targeted gene replacements, moss strains were created with non-immunogenic humanised glycan patterns.

10:05-10:20 StarGate®: The Alternative to Gateway®.
Thomas Schmidt, Ph.D., COO, IBA GmbH
The novel StarGate® cloning system is specifically designed to systematically screen for the best expression conditions for a given GOI by its structured vector portfolio including the most popular affinity tags and promoter/host systems. StarGate is not reliant on long attachment sites thereby avoiding significant GOI modification and its fusion cloning module enables the flexible assembly of different GOIs for the production of fusion proteins, antibodies or multi protein complexes. The system is presented together with the latest developments of the Strep-tag technology for downstream applications.


10:20-10:35 Design Parameters to Control Synthetic Gene Expression  
Claes Gustafsson, VP Markerting & Sales, Co-founder, DNA2.0
DNA2.0 will reveal the surprising results from a 3 year NSF-funded project to identify and quantify the gene design variables controlling heterologous protein expression (PLoS One, in press). The systematic analysis of gene design parameters shown in this study has allowed us to identify unexpected codon usage as a critical determinant of achievable protein expression levels in expression hosts.  We propose a biochemical basis for this, as well as design algorithms to ensure maximal protein production from synthetic genes.
 

10:35-11:00 Coffee Break Sponsored by  

11:00-11:30 Therapeutic Antibody Production in Mammalian Cells at Lab Scale: Comparison, Adaptation and Implementation of Strategies for Time and Cost Savings

Gerald Casperson, Ph.D., BioTherapeutics Center of Emphasis, Pfizer Discovery Research

We have explored a variety of options for laboratory-scale (up to several grams) production of biotherapeutic antibodies from mammalian cells, including large scale transient transfection with PEI and other lipids, baculovirus transduction and production from stably-transfected pools of cells. We have also evaluated process improvements such as fed-batch strategies to increase productivity. We will discuss implementation and impact of improvements that allow rapid production of gram quantities of antibody therapeutics suitable for evaluation in animal models.

11:30-12:00 Achieving Exceptional Yields in CHO and PER.6® Cell Lines Enables Full Pre-Clinical Evaluation of Candidates without the Need for CMO Scale Up

Bram Bout, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, Board of Directors, Bioceros BV

New High Expression Level Cell Lines in combination with innovative disposable culturing systems allow for sufficient volumes of test material to be produced at a laboratory scale (20 liter) to enable a complete pre-clinical characterisation and safety evaluation. This, without the need of a costly and time consuming scale up to a GMP CMO facility, as was classically the case. Furthermore, these novel production methods allow the use of serum free culture media, making a seamless transition to GMP CMO possible, further negating the classical adaptation necessity and allowing for a swift commencement of Phase 1 clinical testing.

12:00-12:30 E. coli Expression Systems: New Tools for Improved Process Development of Biopharmaceuticals

Ian Hodgson, Ph.D., Head, Molecular Biology, Research and Development, Avecia Biologics

We have developed expression systems which have been specifically designed to enable rapid evaluation of the optimal expression route in E. coli (Intracellular, Soluble/Insoluble, or Periplasmic secretion), whilst enabling high overall yields, with minimal process development time. We will describe the design of the system, and demonstrate their use in a number of real case studies. In addition we will describe some recent enhancements to the system utilising novel components.

12:30-13:45 Lunch for Purchase in the Exhibit Hall and Exhibit Viewing

13:45 Close of Improving Protein Expression hrough Innovation conference

For more information, please contact:
Elizabeth Lamb, Senior Conference Director
Cambridge Healthtech Institute
E-mail: elamb@healthtech.com 

For exhibit and sponsorship information, please contact:
Carol Dinerstein
Cambridge Healthtech Institute
Email: dinerstein@healthtech.com 
Phone: 781-972-5471