The effects of flow fields and surfaces on protein stability and aggregation

Antibodies are routinely used, because of the ability to control their specific binding properties, as the basis for biological pharmaceuticals. Unfortunately, typical processing flow fields can easily destabilize them and lead to aggregation and failure. This is an expensive bottleneck. This project will use advanced computer simulations, combined with statistical mechanics, to construct a novel coarse-grained model that can be used to predict and control protein aggregation in flow. Preliminary experiments will accompany these calculations. In addition to its relevance to the pharmaceutical industry, knowledge of how proteins behave in flow is of interest in understanding some biological processes in blood, as well as methods for manufacturing synthetic materials, such as silk mimics, from proteins.