The major training goal of Biorapid has been achieved by successfully recruiting 15 high-calibre ESRs within 6 months of the start and successfully training them through tailored scientific and complementary competency training both at the host institutions and planned network-wide training weeks. The scientific results achieved to date were disseminated through a range of conferences, particularly through the mid-term conference, ESBES 2016 held in Dublin, where the work of all 15 ESRs was accepted either for oral or poster presentation. The ESRs are also actively disseminating their results to general public, particularly targeting young future potential scientists and engineers. An engaging video was designed by the ESRs to explain in simple terms the aims of the project and widely publicised through social media with rapidly increasing numbers of viewings on the project website.
Biorapid successfully adapted early screening methods to identify potential undesired hypersensitivity and toxicity effects and the ESRs involved in this work are currently developing novel toxicological tests for large biomolecules that present a particular challenge in early stage testing. A range of modelling techniques, based on fundamental process knowledge and on process data collected during processing have been successfully used to characterise a range of bioprocesses, from large scale lactic acid fermentations, microbial recombinant protein production to the production of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) using cell culture processing, both upstream and downstream. Successful high-throughput (HTP) experimentation protocols and optimal design of experiments methodologies incorporating uncertainties associated with bioprocessing have been developed and tested on model systems selected by the academic and industrial consortium partners. Printed sensors and softsensors are currently being tested as demonstrators for effective monitoring of cultivations and downstream process (DSP) purification of a range of bioproducts. We have also successfully developed a range of host strains that would increase product quality through rational design. The outcomes of the individual ESR projects are now being formulated into a MultiAgent System (MAS) that will enable rapid bioprocess development and effective monitoring at the end of the project. At this stage, the MAS framework is capable of rapidly importing data from various sources for numerous processes and perform the pre-processing identified by individual ESRs projects as most appropriate. Agents capable of carrying out databased and first principle modelling have also been implemented and the demonstrator version tested with data from an industrial partner of the consortium.
In the next stages of the project these approaches will be further refined and fully tested on the processes/products of our industrial consortium partners to ensure wide applicability across the bioprocessing sector.
