Employing Raman Spectroscopy for monitoring a vaccine manufacturing process

Vaccine antigen production is a process that entails numerous variables. In order to have a consistent and robust process, monitoring of process parameters and controlling output variables within a certain range is the best practice. To accomplish this objective, analytical tools are used, on-line, off-line, at line. Real time monitoring of the processes is advantageous as operating parameters can always be adjusted to keep the process in check. For the sake of efficiency, it would be reasonable to determine those parameters that are correlated to the productivity obtained at the end of the process. On-line measurements would facilitate calculating and defining these parameters. There are non-invasive tools that can collect continuous measurements without interfering with the integrity of the process. Raman probes and NIR probes are examples to this type of approach. In this study the intern will be tasked to use these tools to identify any patterns which can be linked to the final productivity. The instrument will be tested in all unit operation steps to map the evolution of measured metabolites/substrates upstream and downstream of the process. Mathematical modelling, such as multivariate analysis, Principal Component Analysis, Partial least Squares will be used in synthesizing and interpreting the data.

Faculty Supervisor:

George van der Merwe;Hector Budman

Student:

Trung Hieu Hoang

Partner:

Sanofi Pasteur

Discipline:

Biochemistry / Molecular biology

Sector:

University:

Program:

Accelerate