PROTEIN PURIFICATION BY CONTINUOUS CENTRIFUGATION

AN ASSESSMENT IS PROPOSED OF CONTINUOUS HIGH-G CENTRIFUGA- TION FOR PRODUCTION PURIFICATION OF MEDICAL PROTEINS ARE SEPARATED TODAY IN ULTRA-CENTRIFUGES BUT IT IS NOT CONTINU- OUS AND THE METHOD HAS NOT BEEN ALL SCALED UP. THE SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES ARE TO ASSESS SEPARATION SELECTIVITY AND THROUGH PUT RATE; AND POSSIBLE BIOLOGICAL DAMAGE TO THE PROTEIN BY SHEAR BY SEDIMENTATION AND BY INTENSE CENTRIFUGAL FORCE. THEFOCUS OF THE ANALYSIS WILL BE ON INTERNAL FLOWS IN THE ROTATIN FLUID AND THEIR IM- PACT ON SEDIMENTATION AND SEPARATION SELECTIVITY. THE FO- CUS OF THE EXPERIMENTS WILL BE ON THE PROTEIN. RESEARCH ON THE HARDWARE IS RESERVED FOR PHASE II. NO HARDWARE FEATURESARE BELIEVED TO BE BEYOND THE STATE-OF-THE-ART. AN EXPLORA TORY DESIGN WILL BE MADE FOR COST COMPARISON TO CHROMATOGRA-PHY. IF CONTINUOUS CENTRIFUGAL PURIFICATION IS FEASIBLE, A NEW METHOD OF DOWNSTREAM PROCESSING BECOMES AVAILABLE TO THETO THE BIOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY. BECAUSE DOWNSTREAM PROCES- SING NOW REPRESENTS 70-80% OF THE PRODUCT COST, CENTRIFUGAL SEPARATION COULD LOWER SIGNIFICANTLY THE COST TO THE PATIENTNEW DRUGS.