Synechococcus Cyanobacteria as a Novel Monoclonal Antibody Production Host

James Brown of Bondi Bio Pty Ltd with Jake Baum at UNSW Sydney, both in Australia, will develop a biomanufacturing platform for low-cost production of the antimalarial monoclonal antibody MAM01 using the photosynthetic cyanobacterium Synechococcus as the protein expression system. They will engineer a cyanobacterial strain to express MAM01, grow it in high-density batch cultivation, optimize cell lysis and clarification to ensure maximum product yield and integrity, and purify fully assembled MAM01 by standard column chromatography. Purified MAM01 will be analyzed to confirm it has the correct mass, folding, and assembly, including complete disulfide bond formation and the expected glycosylation, and the strain will be engineered further where required. They will also use these experimental results to outline a facility design and an economic model for MAM01 biomanufacturing, focusing on the initial process steps of batch cultivation, centrifugation, and cell lysis.