Virus inactivation using an electrically conducting virus filter in biopharmaceutical manufacturing process

Abstract

Biopharmaceutical manufacturing processes using mammalian cells or plasma carry the risk of viral contamination. To mitigate these risks, it is essential to ensure viral clearance during the downstream process. Virus-retentive filters are used for size-based virus filtration, offering robust viral removal of more than 99.99%. However, virus breakthroughs have also been reported during virus filtration under certain conditions. In addition, these virus-retentive filters are disposable to ensure the safety of bioproducts, leading to significant costs and environmental concerns. In this study, innovative electrically conducting virus filters were fabricated using free-standing carbon veils (CV) and used to achieve additional virus inactivation after filtration. The viruses were captured in a CV-assisted virus filter, which was electrically heated using direct current to inactivate the viruses. This electrically conducting virus filter can inactivate viruses and can be reused up to five times. These results demonstrate that electrical conduction through electrical conducting damaged the phage capsid and eliminated the RNA genome, leading to bacteriophage inactivation. Moreover, it was confirmed that the electrically conducting virus filter could be reused up to five times without any changes to its physical or chemical structure. This study contributes to the reduction of process costs and environmental impacts by enabling the reuse of virus filters and enhancing the safety of the virus filtration process by preventing undesired virus breakthroughs.