Procrystal -
The Project
What is PROCRYSTAL?
(PROCRYSTAL) is an innovative multidisciplinary and intersectoral training programme that will support and train the next generation of highly skilled engineers and scientists, with a holistic view from molecular scale to process scale and a creative mindset to resolve the current and future challenges in the dynamic biomanufacturing industry to boost EU’s capabilities.
As such, PROCRYSTAL gathers leading academic and industrial researchers with expertise in biochemistry, biotechnology/ bioprocessing, crystallisation science, chemical and process engineering, and advanced modelling, with state-of-the-art facilities.
15 DCs will be trained with an integrated training approach to solve current challenges in biopharmaceuticals DSP. The DC’s will acquire fundamental understanding of the underlying phenomena, from the molecular scale to process scale, and gain experience of both advanced experimental and modelling techniques specific to crystallisation technology to which are added career planning and development, writing and communication, and management training activities.
Description
Downstream processing (DSP) of biopharmaceuticals is dominated by chromatographic steps which suffer from low throughput, poor scalability and elevated energy consumption, as well as high equipment and materials costs. To this is added the low stability and high degradability of liquid formulations.
PROCRYSTAL vision is that of crystallisation as a simple, sustainable, cost-efficient and scalable alternative to current DSP techniques and liquid formulations, once it allows to separate, purify and stabilise in a single step.
Within this training program, 15 Doctoral candidates (DCs) are expected to go beyond current practise to respond to near future biomanufacturing needs. And only possible leveraged by the expertise conveyed in a Consortium made up of renowned academics in the field of biomolecules crystallisation, chemical and process engineering as well as advanced modelling, and the active contribution of several industrial partners.
Organisation
The Project contains 6 work packages (WPs), three of which are research based as illustrated in the scheme. The approach of PROCRYSTAL revolves around close integration of innovative biochemistry, biotechnology, crystallisation, process design and modelling. All the DCs will experience the complete path from molecules behaviour to complete process design and evaluation.
The implementation is achieved via 3 highly interactive science and technology WPs. Critical insights into biomolecules nucleation control (WP1) and process design (WP2) are provided thought experimentation in scaled-down technologies with advanced PAT tools (WP3), assisted by modelling.