Professor Sapna Sarupria

Professor Sapna Sarupria
Department of Chemistry
University of Minnesota

Formulations for Biologics: A Tango Between Biomolecules and Solvent Governs Stability

Development and distribution of biological formulations – including therapeutic proteins, vaccines, and gene therapy products – is bottlenecked by the cold chain requirement, which preserves these formulations at refrigerated temperatures. To alleviate the need for cold storage, small molecule excipients can be added to formulations to improve temperature stability. However, this process is iterative, time-consuming, and expensive. We leverage computer simulations to elucidate the molecular-level details of excipient mechanisms, contributing to a more information-driven approach to excipient selection. Our studies highlight that molecular systems behave not because of strong interactions, but because of weak, solvent-mediated effects that affect the thermodynamics and dynamics of the system. In this talk, I will show how coordinated solvent and biomolecular interactions modulate the molecular stability and self-assembly of biomolecules. I will demonstrate how understanding molecular mechanisms can enable rational design of formulations and developing descriptors that can unify the broad range of mechanisms through which excipients affect biomolecular stability. Lastly, I will describe novel computational approaches developed in our lab that enable computationally feasible studies of stability of virus capsids in various excipient solutions. In my talk, I will highlight and discuss the key results from this work collectively pushing the frontiers of rational design of formulations for stable biologics.

Sapna Sarupria

Dr. Sapna Sarupria is an associate professor in the department of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (UMN). Before joining UMN in Fall 2021, she was an associate professor in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Clemson University. She received her Master’s from Texas A & M University, her Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and was a postdoctoral researcher in Princeton University. Her research focuses on developing and applying molecular simulations to study materials relevant to health and energy. She received the NSF CAREER award, ACS COMP Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, Clemson’s Board of Trustees Award of Excellence and the CoMSEF Impact Award. She is the co- founder of the NSF-funded Institute of Computational Molecular Science Education (I-CoMSE), co-organizer of virtual seminar series “Statistical Thermodynamics and Molecular Simulations (STMS)”, associate editor for LiveCoMS -- Living Journal of Computational Molecular Simulation, co- Director the NSF-funded National Research Traineeship program (NRT) Data-Driven Discovery and Engineering from Atoms to Processes (3DEAP), co-chair of 2028 Water Gordon Research Conference, and elected trustee of the not-for-profit Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering (CACHE).

Hosted by Professor Ilja Siepmann