Team:Imperial College London/Manufacturing

Pill manufacture is not only concerned with drug release but also by synthesis, purification, packaging, storage, administration and quality control. The E.ncapsulator has been designed to address each of these important manufacturing considerations.

In a batch culture system, a defined volume of media is innoculated with a small number of cells. If the cells are being used for protein production, it is vital that synthesis is initiated at the right time. The optimum time for protein production is when there are a large number of rapidly dividing cells in a nutrient rich media.

In our system, the protein of interest is synthesised at the start of the production process in a phase known as Module 1 . Importantly, the time at which Module 1 starts is controlled by the addition of a chemical inducer called IPTG. This means that Module 1 can be initiated when there is the optimum ratio of cells to remaining nutrients.