Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Preparative liquid chromatography is the dominant, downstream operation for the purification ofbiological compounds in the bio-pharmaceutical industries. The packed bed column is essential to the performance of the chromatographic step. As new column packing methods are developed, it is necessary to qualify columns to ensure they perform in a robust and consistent fashion. In addition, as new analytical procedures and preparative scale approaches are developed, improved methods are needed for column packing or modifications to current approaches are required. Over the past few years, the industrial partner in this application, PolyAnalytik Inc., has been a part of several research and development projects (R&D) in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. PolyAnalytik Inc. has also been involved in selling chromatographic columns in the separation of small molecules and macromolecules for a decade. The extensive knowledge and experience gained by the organization in the purification and chromatographic techniques used in pharmaceuticals applications have allowed the organization to consider the development of uniquely packed chromatographic columns containing bioprocessing resins for many purification applications (e.g. for pharmaceuticals such as proteins, peptides, antiviruses). PolyAnalytik Inc. owns several proprietary approaches for column packing. In this proposal, the Bassi lab will explore experimental and mathematical modelling tools to investigate the packed column efficiency of these columns in collaboration with Polyanalytik to further advance the development of highly efficient systems. This investigative study on column packing efficiencies in partnership with the Bassi laboratory at UWO is crucial to Polyanalytik as the development of such packed columns as this will lead to innovative and distinctively packed columns for high efficiency chromatographic applications.