Geisa Gonçalves

PhD Student

(MIT|Portugal bioengineering

PhD Program)

 

Background

 

Graduation in Biochemical Engineering,

University of São Paulo, 2006.

 

Research Activities

 

The overall goal of my PhD project is to develop and test an E. coli strain specifically adapted to meet the upstream and downstream processing challenges associated with large scale production of plasmid vectors. By rationally engineering specific genes we aim to deliver a host capable of striving in high-density cell cultures while synthesizing large amounts of supercoiled plasmids at a high plasmid/impurity ratio. This project will be developed in contribution with Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.  Newly developed strains will be evaluated for use with vectors, more nuclease resistant, which are being optimized by the IST group for improved in vivo stability. Additionally, the MIT group will explore the utility of new kinds of vectors to improve the specific and volumetric yields of pDNA fermentations. The impact of the new strain and vector designs on the downstream processing, final plasmid quality and process economics will be assessed at IST.

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