Precisely Patterned Nanofibers for High Performance Bioseparations

Biopharmaceutical drugs save lives and drastically improve well-being. The number of new bio-drugs approved or in pipeline is rising but only 1/4 of patients have access to them. Bioseparation is a critical step in biopharmaceuticals manufacture. Bioseparation processes have low productivity, and are responsible for the environmental footprint and high cost of manufacturing. They use polymeric adsorbents decorated with affinity ligands that increase the selective capture of the required bio-drug. Current adsorbents originate slow processes with low capacity due to diffusive transport and the uncontrolled heterogeneous distribution of affinity ligands. Only a radical change in purification technologies can reduce the environmental footprint of biopharma industry, and increase productivity, making biopharmaceuticals quickly accessible to all. PURE envisions the pioneering of precisely functionalised purification nanofibers using principles of scalable biotechnological processes. For the first time, affinity ligands are introduced into convective adsorbents in a site-directed oriented manner and predefined spatial arrangement. Scientific and engineering principles on living organisms are combined to produce the biobased adsorbents of the future, putting Europe in the forefront of sustainable and patient-oriented biopharma. PURE brings together leading scientists and a SME as a highly interdisciplinary team with expertise in biology, chemistry, computational modelling, materials science, bioprocess engineering and applied social sciences. The new scientific knowledge and technological paradigm established in PURE have a wide window of opportunities. The scalable bioproduction of fibers with uniform ligand functionalization at predicted sites has never been achieved, and is currently limiting the performance of materials, namely in medical and technical applications. PURE revolutionizes the way advanced functional materials are thought today, and enables a new future.