Understanding and avoiding protein aggregation and gelation is essential in formulating biopharmaceuticals. We show how we can use a combination of advanced characterization techniques such as light and x-ray scattering, neutron spin echo measurements and microrheology experiments, combined with the theoretical toolbox from colloid physics and state-of-the-art computer simulations, to assess and predict aggregation and gel formation in concentrated solutions of proteins. We will in particular address the influence of weak attractive patches on the structural and dynamic properties of concentrated protein solutions, and discuss how we can combine interparticle interaction effects and the formation of (transient) equilibrium aggregates in an attempt to understand and predict properties such as the concentration dependence of the osmotic compressibility, the short and long time diffusion coefficient and the zero shear viscosity of dense protein solutions.

Protein aggregation and gelation – insight from combining scattering, rheology and computer simulations

255th National Meeting (2018)

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