(160a) Virus Surface Chemistry Modeling to Understand Separation Behavior

There is a need to improve the purification of viruses to be used as therapeutic molecules, including as vaccines and gene therapies. Dr. Steve Cramer introduced a method to study the surface charge and hydrophobicity of proteins to predict their binding behavior to multimodal ligands. We are taking a similar approach to understand the surface chemistry and separation behavior of viruses. This overview will show examples of surface chemistry analysis being used to describe AAV empty and full separation as well as the thermal stability of viral vaccines using charged polymers. While there are many challenges with this approach to study large macromolecules, we have been able to explain complex experimental data by comparing it to the virus surface charge and hydrophobicity.