CHBE 565-International Paper Co Seminar-Prof. Sapna Sarupria, University of Minnesota (Host: Prof. Baron Peters) "Molecular Design of Excipient Formulations for Stable Biologics"

Abstract: Development and distribution of biological formulations – including therapeutic proteins, vaccines, and gene therapy products – is bottlenecked by the cold chain requirement, which preserves these formulations at refrigerated temperatures. To alleviate the need for cold storage, small molecule excipients can be added to formulations to improve temperature stability. However, this process is iterative, time-consuming, and relatively expensive. We leverage simulations to grasp the molecular-level details of excipient mechanisms, contributing to a more information-driven understanding of excipient selection. Through our simulations, we demonstrated that a common excipient, arginine, can readily flip between stabilizing and destabilizing effects depending on the chemical features of the biological formulation, thus addressing a long-standing debate on contradictory arginine effects on biomolecules. We developed binary excipient solutions that could regulate arginine effects further demonstrating the possibility of rational design of formulations.  Furthermore, we have developed novel computational approaches that enable computationally feasible studies of stability of virus capsids in various excipient solutions. In my talk, I will highlight and discuss the key results from this work.

Bio: Dr. Sapna Sarupria is an associate professor in the department of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (UMN). Before joining UMN in Fall 2021, she was an associate professor in the department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Clemson University. She received her Master’s from Texas A & M University and her Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She was a postdoctoral researcher in Princeton University. Her research focuses on using molecular simulations to tease out the underlying phenomena governing material behavior. Her research lab integrates molecular simulations and machine learning and works closely with wet-lab experimentalists. She received the NSF CAREER award, ACS COMP Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, Clemson’s Board of Trustees Award of Excellence and the CoMSEF Impact Award. She is the co-founder of the NSF-funded Institute of Computational Molecular Science Education (I-CoMSE). She is also the co-director of the NSF-funded National Research Traineeship program (NRT) Data-Driven Discovery and Engineering from Atoms to Processes (3DEAP) housed in the CEMS and Chemistry departments at UMN.