PRESENTATION BY
Professor Rainer Fischer
Purdue University
TOPIC
Plant-based Biopharmaceuticals: How to Move New Product Candidates Towards Translational Research and the Market
WHEN
Friday, 13 November at 2.00pm
Register to join this webinar at:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Ah07Kw69S_yz6xI-PUHawQDESCRIPTION
The development of recombinant antibodies and vaccines has allowed us to treat and prevent a large number of life-threatening diseases. However, as things stand in late 2020, the speed, capacity and scalability of current production systems is beginning to place limitations on this crucial technology. The large-scale production of antibodies, vaccines and other pharmaceutical recombinant proteins is restricted by the industry’s current reliance on fermenter technology, particularly the culture of mammalian cells. This expensive and time-consuming production platform is preventing the distribution of recombinant protein drugs to those most in need. One way in which the above limitations can be addressed is through the use of plants and plant-based expression systems for rapid recombinant pharmaceutical protein production. We have also developed an interesting multi-stage malaria vaccine and neutralizing rabies antibody candidates and will discuss how these products have matured over the years both in performance and in manufacturing with the aim in mind to bring these two products into translational research within the next months. Finally state of the art technology developments to accelerate the development and production of PMPs as well as regulatory issues will be discussed. Along this line an innovative new manufacturing concept using LED lighting in a vertical farm concept has been developed.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Rainer Fischer, Ph.D., was named Senior Executive for Innovation and Discovery in April 2019. Fischer joined the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute (IBRI) in April of 2017 as the Chief Scientific and Innovation Officer. In October that same year, he also was named Chief Executive Officer. Fischer spent 19 years building and leading the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME) in Aachen, Schmallenberg, Muenster, Giessen, Frankfurt and Hamburg in Germany, and its subsidiaries in Newark, Delaware, USA and Santiago, Chile. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is the largest applied science research organization in Europe, with applied research aimed at addressing issues of health, security, production technology, energy, materials, and the environment.
During his time at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Fischer grew the IME Institute from 40 to 680 employees, raised with his team almost one billion euro in extramural research funding, and established international collaborations with academia and industry in more than 25 countries. Those collaborations include many of the leading global companies in the biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, food and chemical industries.
Fischer also served as Department Head of the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology at RWTH Aachen University where he was awarded a Distinguished Professorship in 2015. He created the department, co-establishing both undergraduate and graduate programs that have matriculated more than 500 students including 137 graduated Ph.D. students. Fischer is a prolific presenter and has published more than 420 peer-reviewed scientific papers and book chapters that have been cited almost 20,000 times.
In addition to his academic and leadership experience, he co-founded five biotechnology startups, holds over 50 issued patents and has more than 100 patent applications pending. Fischer also holds a second Professorship at Maastricht University, Netherlands where he co-founded the Aachen-Maastricht-Institute-of-Biobased-Materials (AMIBM) in 2015. In 2018, he was appointed Presidential Fellow and Research Professor at Purdue University.