Centers of Excellence

Overview

In September 2019, led by our long specific experience and strong capacity in R&D in recombinant biopharmaceutical proteins at Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department, in TBRI, we started establishing CERBioP, amultidisciplinary, world-class level and internationally competitive R & D center of excellence to enhance and support recombinant biopharmaceutical proteins discovery, development and production in collaboration with academia and the rising industry sectors in this field in Egypt.

Recombinant biopharmaceutical proteins based drugs can treat a wide variety of conditions with remarkable effectiveness. Consequently, the recombinant biopharmaceutical proteins research and market are of the biggest and fastest-growing in the world and Egypt is a big promising market.

We empower R&D and introduce solutions for discovery, development, production and characterization of recombinant biopharmaceutical proteins

Funding

# This center is funded by the national project 31257 titled “Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics Guided Development and Characterization Research in Recombinant Pharmaceutical Proteins”, STDF (Science and Technology Development Fund (recently Science, Technology & Innovative Funding Authority)) Grants for Centers of Scientific Excellence (STDF-SCSE- Call II) 2019, Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Giza, Egypt.

# Units and Labs construction is funded by Theodor Bilharz Research Institute

CERBioP Center

Vision

To be leading, analytics-driven, technical problem-solvers who have dedicated our lives to augment, coordinate and serve national scientific research efforts for development and characterization of recombinant biopharmaceutical proteins and to foster and serve pharmaceutical companies for development and production of recombinant biopharmaceutical proteins based drugs.

Mission

To establish strong and accredited sustainable national reference center and knowledge hub with state-of-the-art scientific capacities in this field especially in advanced molecular characterization of therapeutic proteins. To empower, expand and integrate the R&D capacity, and through national and international collaborations, a consortium with affiliated centers will be established. In addition to conduct international level, high-quality research projects with academia and industry and introduction of solutions with national know-how development, CERBioP will conduct training, advanced research, analytical services and consultations for a wide scientific research community and industry in this field.

CERBioP research solutions platforms

• Clone development platform
  Deals with isolation/discovery of target biopharmaceutical proteins (and antibodies) genes, clone them in appropriate expression vector and development of efficient stable high expression clones for them using bioinformatics and molecular biology tools like phage display.

• Process development platform
  Deals with pilot scale production processes (upstream and downstream) will be developed for the therapeutic recombinant proteins.

• Bioanalytical platform
  Deals with massive, deep and highly advanced analysis of biopharmaceutical proteins concerning the following themes: protein chemical properties and modifications, protein structure protein purity and heterogeneity (isoforms of the protein), aggregate analysis, pharmacological studies (pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics) and bioactivity assessment.

Research

Fields of research

1. Discovery research for therapeutic proteins.
2. Discovery research for targeting proteins and recombinant single domain monoclonal antibodies using phage display.
3. Cloning and expression of recombinant proteins.
4. Development and characterization of clones producing recombinant pharmaceutical proteins (especially biosimilars and recombinant monoclonal antibodies).
5. Bioprocessing and chemical engineering of recombinant proteins.
6. Molecular/Bioanalytical and structural characterization of recombinant proteins.
7. Quality assessment of recombinant pharmaceutical proteins.
8. Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of recombinant proteins.
9. Introduce integrative solutions in these fields.

Facilities and instrumentation 

Facilities
The CERBioP in TBRI

Unit 1

• • Clones molecular Development platform

1. 1. 1. 1.  Molecular lab 1
         2.  Molecular Lab2

• •   Process Development platform (clean area labs).

1. 1. 1. 1. Fermentation lab
         2. Chromatography and protein folding lab
         3. Preparation lab

Unit 2

• • Bioanalytical platform.

1. 1. 1. 1.  Protein chemistry lab
         2.  Mass spectrometry lab
         3. Tissue culture lab

Consortium

A physical consortium is established to empower the capacity of the center this consortium included:

• Drug evaluation and discovery center (DEDC) in TBRI (in the bioanalytical platform)
• Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering pilot plant unit, National research center (in the process development platform for large scale bioprocessing).

Instrumentations

LC –IM-MS-MS (Orbitrap Exploris 480, Thermofisher)
nano HPLC (Ul.Mate 3000 RSLCnano, Thermofisher)
ultraHPLC (Vanquish Horizon and others)
HPLC
Computer analytical stations and specialized software
Low flow preparative chromatographic systems (AKTA systems)
High flow chromatographic systems (AKTA systems)
Fermentors 5 liters
Fermentor 20 liters
French press h0mogenizer
Spectrophotometers
Speed Vacuum system
Floor model sup er speed centrifuge
Cooling centrifuges
L amina flow (s)
Tissue culture incubators
Inverted microscope
PCR machines
Gel documentation systems
Protein and DNA electrophoresis systems
Peristaltic pump
And common life science labs facilities

Team In TBRI

Contact us

Prof. Dr. Ehab El-Dabaa  (PI)

Tel: 01098150568
mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Dr. Hend Okasha (Technical manager)

Tel: 01223617105
E.mal: [email protected], [email protected]