Research in biopharmaceutical development involves the use of laboratory and pilot plant facilities that allow the selection of potential organisms and assessment of their behaviour as bioreaction operating scale increases, and the identification of the route for the recovery of the products that they produce. Measurement and analysis is a foundation capability that bioprocess improvements are built on.

Many projects are partnerships with industrial collaborators and make direct use of the results from industrial laboratory to production scale operation. In these cases, the BBTC provides the infrastructure to analyse the data arising using state-of-the-art statistical software tools. Where opportunities arise in those projects to exploit the latest measurement technology, partnering with instrumentation providers allows a rich source of bioprocess data to be acquired resulting in greater insight into process behaviour.

For training purposes, both for the EngD students and industrial continuing professional development programmes, a new laboratory facility has been developed in the School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials. Jointly funded by the University and One NorthEast this gives access to the latest instrumentation implemented on pilot scale bioprocess systems.

Access to a broad range of analysis tools is available through linkages established by the BBTC with the Institute of Research in Environment and Sustainability (IRES) at Newcastle University and the North East Stem Cell Institute (NESCI). In addition, the North East Proteome Analysis Facility (NEPAF) provides access to state-of-the-art equipment to our researchers, as well as providing an analysis facility for industrial collaborators.

Working closely with the North East regional centres of excellence - Centre for Excellence in Life Sciences (CELS) and Centre for Process Innovation (CPI), the BBTC has the opportunity to work beyond the laboratory scale. In particular, the National Industrial Biotechnology Facility at CPI provides the bridge between University based research and industrial end-use.

Whether working on University based programmes or collaborating with industrial partners, the researchers within the Engineering Doctoral Training programme and the wider BBTC have access to state-of-the-art instrumentation giving maximum insight into biosystems behaviour to provide the depth of understanding that Quality by Design demands.