This NSF award by the Chemical and Biological Separations program of the Chemical, Bionengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (CBET) Division and the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry (MSN) Program of the Chemistry Division supports work by Professor Travis S. Bailey to develop new a new class of ultrafiltration membranes relevant to biological separations prevalent across a range of industries, particularly pharmaceutical processes involving antibody and protein based drug purification. In a recent article by Reuters published in April 2011, it was projected that as early as 2014, 8 of the 10 world?s top selling drugs will be antibody based biologics. Separations involving the manufacture of these biologics continue to represent a major fraction of the production cost, due to high costs of current membrane technologies (e.g. Protein A type columns), limited membrane lifetimes due to excessive fouling, and difficult integration into large scale purification process flows. In response to these fundamental challenges, this work explores a new approach to ultrafiltration membrane fabrication based on photoactive tethered micelle networks, assembled from nanostructured block copolymer assemblies. The principal objectives of the proposed research are to develop and validate the potential of this new class of ultrafiltration membranes to provide (1) high flux, (2) narrow and uniform pore size distributions, (3) user-enabled tuning of the molecular weight cutoff regimes and (4) built in fouling resistance and reversal capabilities.
Cumulative energy (and therefore cost) savings associated with higher efficiency ultrafiltration processes would have worldwide impact, dramatically reducing purification processing costs associated with antibody and other protein based drugs being brought to market. Improved fouling resistance and effective reversal strategies would additionally extend the range of systems for which ultrafiltration is a viable separations solution.
