Expertise from across the street
The cooperation between research institutions and companies in Adlershof
In a manner of speaking, Andreas Voigt is a packaging artist. He and his colleagues at the Adlershof company TheraKine BioDelivery embed tiny proteins serving as medicinal agents in a small ball that shuttles them into specific parts of the human body where they can act effectively. The material used for this ball, also termed “matrix” by the researchers, not only serves to shield the proteins, but is also designed to release the agents gradually at their destination, and not before.
In order to safeguard this controlled process to the maximum possible extent, the researchers must first be able to configure not only the properties of the matrix, but also the quantity and distribution of the particles it carries – and that to high precision. “Medical and pharmaceutical approval demands exhaustive, exact documentation and verification. Only so can the described properties be reproduced”, explained Voigt. To this end, he consulted with experts from the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing BAM. Supported by their optical measuring methods, so called Raman microscopy, the team headed by Michael Maiwald at the Process Analysis Division are able to configure the distribution of proteins in the matrix to great precision, and the experiments have verified this. Excited with laser light, the proteins in the sample then emit a characteristic spectrum that is analysed by a scanner and converted into a 3D image.
“The measurements are harmless to the agents, so they are suitable for production quality control as well”, summarised Voigt: “Every detail of our findings has confirmed us in our work.” Voigt and Maiwald are hoping in future to continue intensifying their cooperation that to date has had more of an informal character: “In Adlershof, it’s great that we can support each other, from just across the street as it were”, said Maiwald.
Also Ute Resch-Genger, Director of the Biophotonics Division at the BAM, cooperates closely with SMEs, in particular with manufacturers of optical instrumentation like spectrofluorometers. Supported by her team, her contributions not only extend to the continued development of these technologies.
“One key task also constitutes standardisation, especially for medical and pharmaceutical applications”, explained the researcher. One example is the so called microarray technology. This “equips” a biochip with hundreds of tiny test fields containing biological probe molecules like DNA fragments. A great many samples can then be analysed at the same time with fluorescence methods. The fluorescent signals they emit are then read out and analysed, e.g. for the fast identification of carcinogenic papillomaviruses in the cervix.
In order to minimise any interference from the instruments themselves – brought about for instance by the differing optical components from different manufacturers – BAM researchers pooled with the companies PolyAn and Greiner Bio-One in a project launched by the Federal Ministry of Research to develop a calibration chip. Reliable references are also instrumental in characterising new fluorescents. Their efficiency, i.e. their emission/absorption ratio, should be as high as possible. Resch-Genger and her colleagues are therefore developing reference materials and absolute measuring methods that can be used to analyse transparent and diffusive materials.
By Uta Deffke for Adlershof Special