Stop the Stick: Using Surfactants to Prevent Protein Aggregation in Pharmaceuticals
The assembled balance for the Method 1 activityCopyright This is an image taken by the creators of this lesson.
Students act as chemical engineers tasked with improving the stability of protein-based medicines by developing a cost-effective surfactant to reduce protein aggregation during shipment. They learn about surface tension, surfactants, and the contributions of the scientist Agnes Pockels before using a simple Langmuir-Pockels trough model to test unknown additives. Using their collected data, students propose and evaluate a surfactant solution to minimize protein aggregation caused by agitation.
Chemical engineers apply principles of chemistry, physics, biology, and math to design, analyze, and improve processes involving chemicals, materials, or biological substances. In exploring the surface tension of potential additives, they investigate how substances such as surfactants interact with liquids to reduce surface tension and prevent problems such as protein aggregation in medicines. By testing and analyzing different additives, chemical engineers can select or design solutions that stabilize products, improve performance, and remain cost effective during production, storage, and shipment.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Identify the need for surfactants in protein-based pharmaceutical solutions.
- Identify the key effect of surfactants on surface tension.
- Apply data and knowledge collected from surface tension and surfactant experiments to the problem of protein aggregation.
- Use collected experimental data to plan an ideal surfactant additive that will minimize protein aggregation due to agitation.