23 September, 2020

CIT Pharmaceutical Biotechnology graduate Carl Raftery is due to be awarded his PhD within weeks.

Carl’s academic success stems from a long and very fruitful relationship between Janssen Sciences Ireland UC and CIT’s Department of Biological Sciences, stretching back over many years. One important aspect of the relationship was forged by longstanding departmental work placement coordinators Margaret Lane and Anne Ward; and more recently by Sarah O’Sullivan.

Carl’s part in that story began in his third year of undergraduate studies, with a 16-week work placement at Janssen. This successful work placement was followed by Carl undertaking a collaborative Final Year Project (FYP), that was specified by Janssen. 

The project was co-supervised by Dr Barbara Burgoyne, a manager in the process development department and involved Carl being based with the company for 6 weeks. This approach to designing and supervising a FYP was relatively innovative at the time. The intention was to examine a research question that was relevant and would deliver a specific tangible outcome that would add value to the company.

Following his graduation and based on the success of the FYP work Carl began his PhD under the co-supervision of Dr Burgoyne at Janssen and both Dr Jim O’Mahony & Dr Rosemary Rea (CIT). Four year funding was provided under the Irish Research Council’s Enterprise Partnership Scheme. 

The topic was Reduced Scale Modelling of processes in biomanufacturing, and specifically, how to monitor the state of the process in a sensor-based, ongoing, ‘real-time’ manner. This issue is of major importance in the biomanufacturing sector since traditional ways of process innovation involve extracting samples and conducting laboratory tests for the parameters of interest.

The work involved creating a test rig that used Raman Spectroscopy to monitor the progress of reactions within miniature ‘vessels’. Example parameters being monitored included lactose, glucose and pH. Through a series of experiments, a large dataset of Raman spectra was gathered and analysed using techniques such as Random Forest analysis.

High orders of accuracy were obtained when benchmarked against laboratory testing. The outcome was a generic method for improvements in the process of designing and implementing Reduced Scale Modelling, that is now being deployed not only in Janssen but across the industry. This new method reduces the time and cost of process innovation and improves the ability to react to process changes, compared to the traditional approach.

Carl has already published 3 peer-reviewed papers on the strength of his research, and at the time of writing is shortly due to be awarded his PhD. He is now employed fulltime in Janssen, where he is becoming involved in further aspects of the company.

This model of engagement between CIT and Industry partners demonstrates the potential for industry-wide benefit when the right combination of industry technical challenge, passionate individuals and leading-edge academic enablement converge. In an acknowledgement of the benefits industry sees in this approach, Janssen now has a second PhD student from CIT and other companies are following suit. Congratulations to Carl!