Saurav Datta, PhD

Saurav Datta joined as an Assistant Professor at Amgen Bioprocessing Center, Henry E. Riggs School of Applied Life Sciences in January 2020. Prior to that, he served as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee), India from 2014-2019. He also worked as a Chemical Engineer (2011-2013) and as a Postdoctoral Fellow (2008-2010) at Energy Systems Division, Argonne National Laboratory. Earlier, he obtained PhD from the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Kentucky. He obtained Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) and the University of Calcutta, India, respectively.

His current research interests are focused on the advanced processing of biopharmaceuticals, such as monoclonal antibody, plasmid DNA, viral vectors, and exosomes.

Selected Journal Publications (Visit Google Scholar for the full list)

1. A. Verma, A. K. Sharma, P. Chakraborty, A. Agarwal, P. P. Sarangi, S. Datta^*, Kiran Ambatipudi^*, Selective enrichment of milk fat globules using functionalized polyvinylidene fluoride membrane, Preparative Biochem. Biotechnol., 50 (2020) 18–27
2. D. Somayajula, A. Agarwal, A. K. Sharma, A. E. Pall, S. Datta^*, G. Ghosh*, In Situ Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles within Hydrogel-conjugated Membrane for Enhanced Anti-Bacterial Properties, ACS Appl. BioMater., 2 (2019) 665–674
3. B. Singh, P. Kumar, A. Maheshwari, Anjlika, S. Datta^*, Degradation of fermentation inhibitors from lignocellulosic hydrolysate liquor using immobilized Bordetella sp. BTIITR, Chem. Eng. J., 361 (2019) 1152-1160
4. A. Kumari, L. Rekhie, S. Datta^*, Reversibly attached phospholipid bilayer functionalized membrane pores, Langmuir, 34 (2018) 14395-14401
5. A. Kumari, S. Datta^*, Phospholipid bilayer functionalized membrane pores for enhanced efficiency of immobilized glucose oxidase enzyme, J. Mem. Sci., 539 (2017) 43-51
6. B. Singh, A. Verma, Pooja, P. K. Mandal, S. Datta^*, A Biotechnological Approach for Degradation of Inhibitory Compounds Present in Lignocellulosic Biomass Hydrolysate Liquor Using Bordetella sp. BTIITR, Chem. Eng. J., 328 (2017) 519-526

Conference Presentations

1. A Membrane-Based Purification Platform for Plasmid-DNA Production, Jeeda Al Taki, Jialiang Huang (Kingston), Cindy Saliba, Peter Levison, Leticia Reyes-Regis, Michael Mitchell, Chris Tseng, Kenneth Lee, Julie Pressman, Andria Balogh, Saurav Datta and Hu Zhang, Next Generation Biomolecules and Bioprocesses Session at the Annual Meeting of AIChE, Boston, MA, 2021

We leverage fundamental principles of Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology, and Chemistry to develop advanced bioprocesses with enhanced efficiency, scalability, and economic feasibility. Research activities in the major areas of biopharmaceutical processing are outlined below.

Viral Vectors and plasmid DNAs: Plasmid DNA (pDNA) is one of the major components for manufacturing next-generation biomolecules, such as viral vectors for gene therapy and DNA-based vaccines. With the use of pDNA expanding to next-generation biomolecules, large-scale manufacturing and obtaining the desired purity of the product are emerging as the major bottleneck. Similarly, efficient production of viral vectors, such as adeno-associated virus (AAV), is critical to the success of gene therapy. Our team focuses on bioprocessing of both pDNA and AAV.  In the pDNA space, we aim to develop a membrane-based pDNA purification technology supported by process optimization using a combination of experimental and modeling approaches. Then, we perform triple-transient transfection in mammalian cells to produce AAV followed by chromatography and membrane-based purification of AAV vectors.

Exosomes: Extracellular vesicles, such as exosomes, have attracted significant attention due to potential therapeutic benefits. However, scalable, cost-effective, and efficient manufacturing techniques are the need of the hour. Our team is exploring mesenchymal stem cell-based production followed by membrane-based purification of exosomes.

Monoclonal antibody (mAb): Biopharmaceutical industry is heavily benefited from the platform approach in downstream processing (DSP) of monoclonal antibody (mAb) manufacturing. We aim to contribute toward further advancement of the mAb manufacturing process by exploring perfusion-based upstream processing, process analytical technologies (PATs), and computational approaches.

PhD Students

1. Mandar N. Makwana (Industry Hosted PhD at Ambrx Inc.): Characterization of upstream processes using in-silico methods, such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and real-time online monitoring systems
2. Alexander Burns: Upstream process development for adeno-associated virus (AAV)
3. Cole Azevedo: Downstream process development for adeno-associated virus (AAV)

1. S. Datta, Ayushi Agarwal, Anju Kumari, A virus removal/recovery membrane and its preparation method, Indian Patent application number 201811022826, 2018
2. K. Ambatipudi, S. Datta, A. Verma, Functionalized membrane-based process for selective isolation and enrichment of milk fat globules (MFGs), Indian Patent application number 201811013231, 2018
3. Y. J. Lin, S. W. Snyder, M. P. Henry, S. Datta, Internal gas and liquid distributor for electrodeionization device, US Patent 9,339,764, 2016
4. D. Bhattacharyya, S. R. Lewis, S. Datta, Chemical processing cell with nanostructured membranes, US Patent 9,174,173, 2015
5. Y. J. Lin, S. W. Snyder, S. Datta, M. Trachtenberg, R. Cowen, Carbon dioxide capture using resin-wafer electrodeionization, U.S. Patent 8506784, 2013