Dr. Subramanian, Vaccine R&D at Merck, to Speak at Protein Expression Conf., Oct. 24-25, San Diego

San Diego, CA, September 10, 2013 --(PR.com)-- Shyamsundar Subramanian, Principal Scientist of Vaccine R&D at Merck will speak on “Innovative Solutions to Recombinant Vaccine Expression Challenges” at GTC’s Protein Expression, Purification & Characterization Conference on October 24–25, 2013 in San Diego, CA.

The diverse nature of vaccines, even if one excludes live/inactivated viral vaccines, requires a search for the right expression platform early in the development cycle. In Dr. Subramanian’s presentation, case studies on two different vaccine candidates will be discussed:

1. An enveloped VLP vaccine candidate against a tropical viral diseases where transient mammalian expression was successful, but could not be translated to stable constitutive mammalian expression.
2. A tetravalent protein vaccine candidate against a nosocomial bacterial infection that was based on toxins that were highly cytotoxic to higher eukaryotic cell types.

These case studies will reveal that initial expression challenges can be overcome using creative strategies, but require early investment in the expression system screening and optimization.

Benefits of this talk include:

• What is the current approach to vaccine development, especially in the expression screening and optimization space?
• What are the expression challenges to recombinant vaccine production?
• What are some of the approaches to solve expression challenges?
• What is the future outlook for recombinant vaccines?

Dr. Shyamsundar Subramanian currently leads development for multiple viral and bacterial vaccine projects at Merck. & Co. He has responsibility from expression screening to identify cell substrates through process development, scale-up, and cGMP manufacture of clinical supplies. He has created an expression screening group within the Merck vaccines organization, and has successfully identified appropriate substrates and developed manufacturing processes for many novel vaccine candidates (recombinant protein, VLP, virus). In his current role, Dr. Subramanian is overseeing the introduction of a microcarrier-based bioreactor platform for live viral vaccines and insect cells for recombinant vaccine antigens for the Merck human vaccines portfolio.

The Protein Expression, Purification & Characterization Conference brings together experts from biotech, pharma, academia and the public sector to discuss the issues, challenges and opportunities in the field of protein expression and purification as it relates to therapeutic development. Topics of discussions will include novel expression platforms and systems, protein optimization, new purification methods, protein analytical tools, process development, scale-up and manufacturability.

For more information, please visit www.gtcbio.com/proteinexpression