SBIR Phase I: Nano-enhanced Fibrous Structures for Pathogenic Virus Elimination from Biopharmaceutical Products

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is an effort by Alditri Technologies, Inc. to nano-enhance fiber materials in order to capture parvoviruses. Specifically, Alditri will employ and seek to understand vapor-phase deposition technology as it applies to fiber materials to convert low-cost fiber materials into effective virus capture devices. Purification accounts for a large portion of biopharmaceutical product cost. Further, the extremely expensive parvovirus capture devices currently available are not suitable for large-scale operations, such as those involved in biomanufacturing streams. This work will build upon previous fundamental advances at Alditri regarding the nano-enhancement of nonwovens. The successful completion of this project will result in low-cost, efficient parvovirus removal membranes for use in aqueous streams such those in biopharmaceutical production. The intellectual merit associated with this project is Alditri's ultimate development of a fundamental understanding of fibrous surface modification through vapor phase deposition techniques, thus enabling the technology for use in other applications. The surface modification technology targeted in this project could have considerable broader impacts, for example, in bio-materials and bio-functionalization. Alditri seeks to remove parvoviruses from aqueous streams within biomanufacturing processes with the use of nonwoven base materials, thereby drastically reducing the expense associated with virus filtration. The improved understanding of cost-effective, fiber-based filtration materials and devices has the potential to make parvovirus capture feasible within the water purification industry and even address emerging issues in nanotechnology processing, such as carbon nanotube or functional nanoparticle capture and collection, to avoid potential toxic effects of materials engineered at the atomic scale. This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).