Meeting the scalability challenge of downstream viral vector purification

Tuesday 08:00 PST / 11:00 EST / 16:00 GMT / 17:00 CET

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Meeting the scalability challenge of downstream viral vector purification

In the expanding field of gene and cell therapy, continuous flow ultracentrifugation is slowly revealing its ability to overcome downstream bottlenecks. Unlike the more well-known tube rotor designs, continuous flow zonal UCF offers a unique ability to dynamically use revolving zones at high speeds to provide a scalable and cost-effective process for the purification and concentration of viral vectors.

Understand the capabilities and benefits of continuous flow ultracentrifugation to purify and concentrate viral vectors (including AAV) in a predictable manner.
Assess the scalability and cost-effectiveness of solutions to downstream bottlenecks and gene therapy process development.
Discover what makes linear scalability possible with continuous flow ultracentrifugation.
Learn how to improve your product recovery and process time.

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Seth Brittle

Process Engineer at Alfa Wassermann Separation Technologies

As a Process Engineer at Alfa Wassermann Separation Technologies Seth develops customer methodologies, performs validation testing, and offers process support. He holds a doctoral degree in environmental science with an extensive background in chemistry, nanoscience, and biology. He has knowledge and experiences in many purification bioprocesses such as tangential filtration, chromatography, and centrifugation. He has previously worked for Louis Berger (now WSP) as a hydrogeochemist performing large-scale analytics on anthropogenic pollutants. Before that, he worked for the Air Force Institute of Technology as postdoctoral researcher developing radiation detection schemes to characterize and access high-performance polymeric nanocomposites.

Sandra Merino

Global Project Director at Alfa Wassermann Separation Technologies

Global Project Director Alfa Wassermann Separation Technologies group for 17 years managing process support, product installation and validation including PQ testing. Previously worked at Medeva (now Seqirus) in the UK as a downstream processing scientist working on traditional and recombinant viral and bacterial vaccine scale up and scale down. Holding a BSc Hons in Biological sciences and Biochemistry form Manchester University. As Global Project Director, Sandra has managed process support, product installation and validation including product quality testing for Alfa Wassermann for more than 16 years.

Previously she worked at Medeva (now Seqirus) in the UK as a downstream processing scientist working on traditional and recombinant viral and bacterial vaccine scale up and scale down. She has extensive knowledge and experience in ultracentrifugation operation as it applies to vaccine, viral vector, and cellular therapy research. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in Biological Sciences and Biochemistry from Manchester University.

Xiaotong Fu

Senior Engineer, Downstream Bioprocess Development, Gene Therapies at

Dr.Xiaotong Fu is a senior engineer at Biogen, gene therapeutics downstream purification process development group. Xiaotong Fu is currently leading the downstream process development efforts to support multiple gene therapy programs at Biogen. Xiaotong Fu graduated from the Johns Hopkins University with a doctoral degree, focusing on micro-scale purifications using Lab-on-the-chip technology. He had multiple publications in both gene therapy and lab-on-the-chip fields. The most recent one was published on Human Gene Therapy Method (Aug2019).

George Todorov

Associate Director, Early Stage Process Development at Adverum Biotechnologies, Inc.

George Todorov specializes in HEK293-based rAAV manufacturing methods. He has a background in cell and molecular biology, with 6 years of experience in rAAV biology and process development. George currently leads the Early Stage Process Development team at Adverum Biotechnologies, with the responsibility of supporting Adverum’s candidate discovery pipeline in addition to scale-up and refinement of rAAV manufacturing platforms.

Prior to his venture into Gene Therapy, George explored research aimed at treating Polycystic Kidney Disease, Leukemia, and various solid cancers. His contributions to the Polycystic Kidney Disease and the Gene Therapy fields have been published in PNAS (2011) and presented at the ASGCT (2015) and ESGCT (2019) conferences. George holds a BS degree in Biological Sciences from the University of California Santa Barbara, and a MS degree in Biotechnology from the University of California Irvine.