For Professor Uwe Aickelin. Head of School of Computer and Information Systems at The University of Melbourne, it's just like making cake. That's the analogy he reaches for to describe the recently launched Australian Research Council (ARC) Digital Bioprocess Development Hub - a five-year, $18-million research program that aims to forge an internationally competitive Australian biopharmaceutical sector using digitisation and artificial intelligence (Al) in pharmaceutical manufacturing.
As Aickelin, whose research focus is the use of data mining and Al in medicine, says: ‘You can bake a cake one day and it will turn out perfectly. The next day, it’s the same recipe, the same ingredients, the same oven temperature, but somehow it doesn’t taste quite the same. Well, it is the same in the biopharmaceutical sector. ‘They develop a process that works very well. But then they repeat the process, and it doesn’t work as well. Everybody’s puzzled because it’s the same ingredients, the same instructions, the same chefs, the same temperature setting on the oven. But it’s not giving the same results.
‘That’s the problem they’re having. They want the perfect recipe, but there are always unknown factors; unpredictable behaviours. At the moment, ifs basically trial and error – well informed trial and error, but trial and error nonetheless. That’s where computing comes in: to help find the golden nuggets that will not only eliminate much of the trial and error, but, in the process, make it more cost-effective, because what many in the industry are doing now is expensive. Very expensive.’
For Aickelin, the Deputy Director of the hub program, there is a palpable air of excitement. This hub, encompassing 10 projects under the leadership of 11 chief investigators, will be at the cutting edge by exposing pharmaceutical manufacturing to digitally integrated, advanced, and innovative manufacturing processes with the goals of improving production methods, lowering costs, and increasing supply.
The hub draws together a critical mass of university researchers with industry partners. These include key biopharma companies in Australia like CSL. Global Life Sciences Solutions Australia (Cytiva), Patheon Biologies Australia, Sartorius Stedim, Mass Dynamics (Melbourne), and Yokogawa lnsilico Biotechnology.
On the tertiary side, there are six partners, including two more from Australia (University of Technology Sydney and RMIT University) and three from overseas, (the University of Tartu in Estonia, the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom and Utrecht University in the Netherlands).