Abstract:

Pichia pastoris, rapidly growing yeast, has gained a widespread acceptance as a host for production of a number of recombinant proteins. Recent exciting developments in glycosylation engineering have further propelled Pichia pastoris as an expression host for the manufacture of various vaccines and biopharmaceuticals, including biogenerics. While significant advances have been made in genetically engineering the cells, engineering of fermentation systems to develop scalable and cost-effective humanlike therapeutic protein manufacturing systems is a challenging task. The critical design considerations to achieve high cell densities, and thereby high protein yields, are nutrient(s) supply rate, oxygen transfer and temperature control.

Our research group is involved in developing model based strategies for high cell density Pichia pastoris fermentations for production of glycoprotein hormones such as human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH). In this presentation, we will discuss the model based approach for development of the optimal strategies for achieving highest protein yields in shortest fermentation time. By undertaking a systematic experimental program, we develop two alternate strategies which result in high protein yields. The quantification of the fermentation process allows us to address the problem as a multiple decision – multiobjective optimization problem. A novel computational algorithm, which combines the rigor of the optimal control theory and power of evolutionary search algorithm, is presented. The optimal results and its implications for design of high density fermentations are also discussed.
 

Biography:

Prof. Jayant Modak holds faculty position at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He got his BS degree from University of Bombay, India and MS/PhD from Purdue University. His research interests include modeling and optimization of fermentation processes, microbial bioleaching and development of novel bioreactors for anaerobic digestion processes. He regularly publishes in leading chemical engineering and biotechnology journals including, Chemical Engineering Science, Biotechnology & Bioengineering and Biotechnology Progress.

In 2003 Department of Biotechnology – India awarded him the Biotech Process Development award for design and development of bioreactor for processing of gold ores. He is a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering.