dr. Gust Nuytten (PhD)
Postdoctoral researcher – Laboratory for Pharmaceutical Process Analytical Technology (Faculty of Pharmaceutical sciences, UGent)
Principal investigator: prof. Thomas De Beer (PhD)
Research focus
Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are a promising novel class of cancer drugs. They consist of a chemotherapeutic payload, a linker and an antibody which targets the cancer cells. Despite promising results, all ADCs currently need to be freeze-dried to ensure their stability in storage. The LPPAT lab developed a novel spin freeze-drying technology with advantages such as easy in-process measurement of product quality that makes it well suited to the freeze-drying of ADCs. The goal of our research is to investigate the feasibility of applying spin freeze-drying to ADCs by assessing different formulation and process parameters. Long-term stability will be investigated using a variety of analytical techniques such as cell-based assays and chromatography.