Paper Number
BB36 

Session
Biomaterials and Biological Systems

Title
Microrheology of therapeutic protein solutions

Presentation Date and Time
October 8, 2014 (Wednesday) 1:30

Track / Room
Track 2 / Commonwealth B

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

1. Josephson, Lilian Lam (University of Delaware, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering)
2. Galush, William J. (Genentech, Inc., Early Stage Pharmaceutical Development)
3. Furst, Eric M. (University of Delaware, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Lilian Lam Josephson¹, William J. Galush², and Eric M. Furst^1
1Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716; ²Early Stage Pharmaceutical Development, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA 94080

Speaker / Presenter 
Josephson, Lilian Lam

Text of Abstract

A key challenge encountered in the current development of therapeutic protein solutions is the need to measure the rheology of the drug solutions and identify a stable, syringeable formulations in a large composition space. Commercially available techniques such as capillary viscometry and rotational rheometers are frequently used, but require large sample volumes, on the order of milliliters of fluids. This restricts the number of rheological measurements in the early development stage, as there are only small amounts of proteins typically available.

This talk will focus on characterizing the viscosity of protein therapeutics over a wide range of compositions with a minimal amount of material. Microrheology techniques are powerful methods to study scarce biomaterials¹, and we use multiple particle tracking (MPT) in combination with microfluidic stickers² to provide a high throughput sample processing platform for protein therapeutics. This work examines the microviscosity of three proprietary monoclonal antibody solutions at 10 sample compositions with temperatures ranging from 5 to 45°C. The protein solutions behave like Newtonian fluids over a frequency range of 0.05 to 50 s^-1, and no microstructures have developed. Viscosity-temperature dependence is discussed on the basis of modified Arrhenius formula.

¹K.M. Schultz & E.M. Furst., Soft Matter 8, 2012
²D. Bartolo et al., Lab Chip 8, 2008