VTU to Present Groundbreaking Expression Technologies at Pichia 2014

Grambach, Austria: – VTU Technology, a world leader in Pichia pastoris protein expression, will be presenting groundbreaking extensions to the technology to the upcoming Pichia 2014 conference in California.

VTU is principal sponsor of the event. Its scientists will give three lectures at the conference that will provide insights into its latest research.

Methanol-free Breakthrough
On Day One, Dr. Iskandar Dib, Principal Scientist Process Development & Analytics, will talk about targeted process optimization at VTU and scale up to industrial scale. He will focus on VTU´s unique and groundbreaking methanol-free promoter variants, a novel technology that enables strong expression clearly outperforming conventional promoter systems. Besides abolishing toxic and explosive methanol as a substrate while retaining high expression levels of up to 15 g/L (e.g. for a cellulose hydrolyzing enzyme), the new technology also reduces oxygen consumption and therefore needs significantly less cooling effort in bioreactor cultivation. Dr. Dib will demonstrate that targeted process optimization can deliver five-fold increases in process performance in the production of a recombinant hydrolase.

Unique Recombinant Platform
On Tuesday, March 4, Dr. Roland Weis, Head of Operations, will present VTU achievements in high-level production and characterization of uniform GlcNAc2Man5-decorated proteins by Pichia pastoris, showing how the company is expanding its service offerings by adding RCT´s revolutionary Pichia GlycoSwitch® system for homogeneous N-glycosylation to its portfolio. This unique combination of technologies acts synergistically to offer a new dimension of recombinant protein expression and create a high performance production platform for recombinant glycoproteins with outstanding product yields and controlled GlcNAc2Man5-pattern or generation of other human-like glycoforms.

HSA-fusion Architecture
Later the same day, Dr. Aid Atlic, Research Scientist Development & Fermentation, will talk about the implications on producibility and in vitro as well as in vivo characteristics of several fusion proteins comprising a chemokine fused to HSA.

Fusion of payloads to HSA takes advantage of the inherent high secretion rate of HSA while simultaneously from increased half-life in vivo. Dr. Atlic will show how various HSA-fusion architectures of ProtAffin´s monocyte chemotactic protein-1 PA910 were designed and the respective proteins produced using VTU Technology´s advanced Pichia pastoris expression platform.

Powerful Platform
Dr. Thomas Purkarthofer, VTU’s Head of Business Development, commented: “This is our third appearance at the Pichia congress and we are proud to be platinum sponsor of this event that celebrates the breathtaking advances which have been achieved in yeast protein expression.”

“In their three presentations, my colleagues will demonstrate that the technology is still evolving very fast and that VTU now possesses one of the most versatile and most powerful Pichia protein expression platforms in the world,” said Dr. Purkarthofer.

“To date, VTU has established a broad range of technologies and know-how for the fast-track generation of high performance Pichia protein production strains and processes. Exclusive proprietary technologies and the profound experience of our VTU team have led to ultra-competitive production processes for a wide range of recombinant proteins,” he added.

About VTU Technology
VTU Technology is a leading service provider for the fast track development of protein expression strains and protein production processes often yielding up to 20 g/L of secreted protein for a wide range of biologics and other proteins.

VTU Technology´s powerful Pichia pastoris protein expression technology platform is based on its exclusive AOX1 promoter libraries & in-house expression platform, complemented by its optimized gene design &cloning strategies as well as high-throughput screening & cultivation regime, combined with excellent know-how in fermentation and downstream process development.

Headquartered in Grambach/Graz, Austria, VTU Technology is a private company and a subsidiary of VTU Holding, an Austrian enterprise that combines several technology and engineering companies in pharma and life sciences, chemistry and energy.

About Pichia 2014
The Pichia 2014 Conference, to be held March 2-5 at the Catamaran Hotel and Spa in San Diego, California, has been organised by Research Corporation Technologies (RCT) and bioGrammatics to celebrate 30 years of Pichia research and development. During that time, the technology has led to more than 70 commercial products, two approved therapeutics and more than 5000 proteins expressed.

The conference will explore how this extraordinary system has progressed over the last three decades, producing an ever-expanding variety of novel proteins.

Contact:
VTU Technology GmbH
Dr. Evelyn Trummer-Gödl
Head of Business Development
Tel: +43 (0) 316 4009 4000
Email: [email protected]

For more information about VTU to present groundbreaking expression Technologies at Pichia 2014, please contact VTU Technology directly.