(337co) Population Balance Modelling to understand Crystallization of Adeno-Associated Virus-based Gene Therapies

Research Interests Capsid crystallization, capsid nucleation, heterogeneous nucleation, hanging drop vapor diffusion experiment, constrained nucleation, crystallization thermodynamics, crystallization kinetics

Purification of genome-loaded recombinant adeno-associated viral (full rAAV) capsids from empty capsids is challenging. We developed an efficient method for purification of full rAAV based on preferential crystallization. In order to design an efficient crystallization-based method, we need to understand the capsid crystallization process in depth. We developed a population balance equation (PBE)-based model to understand the crystallization mechanism, time scale, kinetics and other physical properties of the crystals.