An Experimental and Modeling Approach to Study Tangential Flow Filtration Performance for mRNA Drug Substance Purification.

Following the recent COVID-19 pandemic, mRNA manufacturing processes are being actively developed and optimized to produce the next generation of mRNA vaccines and therapeutics. Herein, the performance of the tangential flow filtration (TFF) was evaluated for high-recovery, and high-purity separation of mRNA from unreacted nucleoside triphosphates (NTPs) from the in vitro transcription (IVT) reaction mixture. For the first time, the fouling model was successfully validated with TFF experimental data to describe the adsorption of mRNA on filtration membrane.

Anion exchange HPLC monitoring of mRNA transcription reactions to support mRNA manufacturing process development.

mRNA technology has recently demonstrated the ability to significantly change the timeline for developing and delivering a new vaccine from years to months. The potential of mRNA technology for rapid vaccine development has recently been highlighted by the successful development and approval of two mRNA vaccines for COVID-19. Importantly, this RNA-based approach holds promise for treatments beyond vaccines and infectious diseases, e.

Minimum surfactant concentration required for inducing self-shaping of oil droplets and competitive adsorption effects.

Surfactant choice is key in starting the phenomena of artificial morphogenesis, the bottom-up growth of geometric particles from cooled emulsion droplets, as well as the bottom-up self-assembly of rechargeable microswimmer robots from similar droplets. The choice of surfactant is crucial for the formation of a plastic phase at the oil-water interface, for the kinetics, and for the onset temperature of these processes. But further details are needed to control these processes for bottom-up manufacturing and understand their molecular mechanisms.

Carbon quantum dots with tracer-like breakthrough ability for reservoir characterization.

Predictions have shown that our demand for oil and gas will continue to grow in the next decade, and future supply will become more reliant on tertiary recovery and from nonconventional resources. However, current reservoir characterization methodologies, such as well logs, cross-well electromagnetic imaging and seismic methods, have their individual limitations on detection range and resolution. Here we propose a pioneering way to use carbon quantum dots (CQDs) as nanoparticle tracers, which can be transported through a reservoir functioning as conventional tracers, while acting as sensors to obtain useful information.

Nanoparticle-enabled delivery of surfactants in porous media.

The adsorption of surfactants on the reservoir rocks surface is a serious issue in many energy and environment related areas. Learning from the concept of drug delivery in the nano-medicine field, this work proposes and validates the concept of using nanoparticles to deliver a mixture of surfactants into a porous medium. TiO nanoparticles (NPs) are used as carriers for a blend of surfactants mixtures including anionic alkyl aryl sulfonic acid (AAS) and nonionic alcohol ethoxylated (EA) at the optimum salinity and composition conditions.