21 Jun Aldevron & UW-Madison College of Engineering win Applied Research Challenge
Aldevron and the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering are pleased to announce that their collaborative project on the development of decision support tools for biomanufacturing has been awarded first place in the 2016 Applied Research Challenge organized by the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS). This competition was established by POMS as a way to encourage its members to conduct rigorous applied research that is innovative and relevant to production and operations management.
The team included Tugce Martagan, Ph.D. and Ananth Krishnamurthy, Ph.D., researchers from the Center for Quick Response Manufacturing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Peter A. Leland, Ph.D. of Aldevron; and Christos T. Maravelias, Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. The team’s project, titled “Optimal Purification Decisions for Engineered Proteins”, developed a decision model that provides managerial insight to optimize protein purification operations. The work provides practical guidelines and predictive software tools to quantify financial risks and optimize decisions based on specific client requirements.
“Our clients have unique and rigorous requirements for their protein production projects,” states Peter Leland, Senior Manager, Protein Services at Aldevron. “The challenge biomanufacturers face is optimizing many parameters, including yield, purity and activity while producing proteins in living cells that have inherent variability. Using mathematical models, we hypothesized that we could reduce the effort and duration required to establish purification processes, resulting in reduced lead times and improved service to our clients”.
“This collaboration has resulted in an innovative application of the theory of stochastic optimization to biomanufacturing. Using models for sequential decision making under uncertainty, we are able to develop tools that would allow Aldevron to meet client targets related to yield and purity requirements with shorter lead times and lower costs” said Dr. Ananth Krishnamurthy, Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Director of the Center for Quick Response Manufacturing.
Aldevron is currently implementing the results of this work in their development processes to deliver increased value to its clients. The work has also been submitted for publication in the Journal of Operations Research.