Biopharmaceuticals & Biopharma Proteomics

Course

URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/XM_0108

Course Objective


• Get a thorough knowledge on biopharmaceuticals (in particular monoclonal antibodies and other protein biopharma) and their importance in the pharmaceutical industry.
• Understand the processes that biopharma have to undergo in order to reach the market.
• Acquire an in-depth knowledge on bioanalytical techniques to characterize biopharmaceuticals.
• Learn about the different types of biopharma and their analysis and characterization, including vaccines, nanobodies and endogenous hormone biologicals.
• Get a thorough understanding of biopharma proteomics.
• Learn how to conduct biopharma proteomics in the laboratory, (practical research will be done on venoms-to-drugs biopharma pipelines).

Course Content

Biopharmaceuticals have become an essential class of drugs that provide new therapeutic possibilities for the treatment of diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and autoimmune diseases. In the world's top ten medicines of 2017 are no fewer than seven are biopharmaceuticals. This course will cover a large diversity of biopharmaceuticals, with an emphasis on therapeutic protein biopharmaceuticals. Biopharmaceutical monoclonal antibodies will get a particular attention, as well as biopharmaceutical nanobodies, endogenous hormone biopharma (such as insulin and human growth factors) and antibody-drug-conjugates. Bioanalytical characterization of vaccines during vaccine development will be discussed, with guest lectures given by industrial lecturers. Important aspects such as indication, drug targets, mechanisms of functioning, product discovery and development, modes of production, purification and administration will be discussed. Extensive attention will be paid to the comprehensive bioanalytical characterization of protein biopharmaceuticals using analytical techniques typically used in biopharma companies. Quantitative analysis of protein drugs, as well aspects such as immunogenicity and biosimilars will also be included. Proteomics research in relation to research on protein biopharmaceuticals is a crucial aspect within bioanalytics for biopharma drug discovery & development. The pharmaceutical industry has become increasingly interested in biologics from animal venoms as a potential source for therapeutic agents. Notably, bioactive peptides in venoms, but also proteins, have raised a lot of attention of the drug discovery arena. To date, multiple drugs derived from venom peptides or proteins have been approved by the FDA and amongst others its European counterpart, and many others are currently commencing through clinical trials. The practical part of this course will lead you through venoms-to-drugs drug discovery and teach you how to perform biopharma proteomics research. You will get hands-on experience and tutorials in studying venoms as model bioactive mixtures for finding venom-resided proteins with biopharmaceutical candidate properties towards a chosen drug target. After state-of-the art venom separations and nanofractionation, you will see how to perform HTS bioassays for a selected drug target. You will characterize the bioactive protein-based toxins found that interacted with the drug target by using nanoLC-MS and proteomics. As proteomics is an important technique for drug-target finding, the use of proteomics in target finding will also be discussed.

Teaching Methods

Lectures, research oriented practical and demonstrations, tutorials, self study, assignment resulting in a presentation.

Method of Assessment

Written exam (50% of the final grade) Lab research performed in small groups
- Practical and intellectual performance in the lab (15%)
- Short report (10%) Group presentation of an assignment on a biopharmaceutical (25%) (The partial marks of the written exam, the lab research, and the presentation all should be 5.5 or higher to pass the course)

Literature

PowerPoint presentations of lectures and additional study material (provided via web-links and/or via PDFs of papers, book chapters and/or other relevant material), which are made available through Canvas. Lab research manual for the practical research part of this course. Other material needed for the research practical and experimental demonstrations in the lab. Movie files of experimental procedures and data processing procedures.

Target Audience

MSc DDS students of the Bioanalytics track, other DDS students interested in Biopharmaceuticals and/or Proteomics.
Academic year1/09/2431/08/25
Course level6.00 EC

Language of Tuition

  • English

Study type

  • Master