Overview

The growing demand for sustainable and health-promoting novel foods (eg, alternative protein, cultivated meat etc), along with increasingly complex pharmaceutical products, has brought downstream processing (DSP) into the spotlight as a critical yet often underestimated component of bioprocess development. While upstream innovations often catalyse attention, downstream separation plays an equally crucial role in ensuring product quality, safety, scalability, and regulatory compliance.

This one-day symposium will provide a focused platform for researchers, industry experts, and regulatory stakeholders to discuss the current challenges, recent innovations, and future directions in downstream separation. The event will emphasise the importance of DSP in the successful commercialisation of novel foods and biopharmaceuticals, especially in the face of evolving regulatory landscapes, sustainability requirements, and the need for cost-effective manufacturing processes.

Attendees will hear from leading experts in cellular agriculture, pharmaceutics, and novel food technologies. A panel discussion will bring together academic and industry voices from both the pharmaceutical and food sectors, fostering cross-disciplinary dialogue. The aim is to identify shared challenges and collaborative solutions that can accelerate progress in DSP across bioprocessing applications.

Key themes include:

• DSP challenges and roadblocks in processing novel proteins, cell-based foods, conventional food products and biopharmaceutics
• Innovations in membrane technologies, chromatography, extraction, and purification techniques
• Scalability and integration of DSP in continuous bioprocessing
• Future research path for sustainable downstream processing in biotech.

By facilitating open dialogue across disciplines, this symposium aims to catalyse new thinking and research focus on DSP as a bottleneck and opportunity area in bioprocessing innovation.

Expected Outcomes:

1. Awareness Building:

Increase recognition of downstream separation as a pivotal, research-worthy component in the commercialization pipeline of novel food and pharmaceutical products.

2. Research Gaps Identified:

Clarify current technological, regulatory, and economic bottlenecks in downstream processing and identify high-impact areas for future research and development.

3. Cross-disciplinary Collaboration:

Foster dialogue between separation experts, food technologists, bioprocess engineers, pharmaceutical scientists, and industry stakeholders to encourage integrated problem-solving.

4. Innovation Showcasing:

Highlight emerging technologies and methods with the potential to revolutionize DSP efficiency, scalability, and sustainability.

5. Strategic Road mapping:

Lay the groundwork for strategic partnerships, consortia, or funding proposals targeting downstream separation innovations.

Organizing Committee:

CARMA team: Dr. Fatima Anjum, Lucinda Brook, Dr. Madhurima Dutta, Isa Senica, Dr. Hannah Leese, Dr. Davide Mattia

IChemE team: Dr. Marcus Cook, Aaron Matin

Abstract submission is now open. Submit your abstract.

Abstract submission by 15 December 2025. Event registration by 15 January 2026.

Organising institution / body: IChemE Fluid separation SIG / CARMA-Hub / Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Bath

Panel discussion:

The panel discussion aims at bringing together experts from food, cell ag. and pharma to discuss challenges in Biotech downstream processing and how we can support each other in advancing biotech DSP. The primary goal of the discussion is to understand the major bottlenecks in downstream processing and their impact on overall progress of bioprocessing in novel foods and pharmaceutics. Additionally, the discussion will include future research paths and how progress in one sector can support the other as well as what collaborative research opportunities can be created to advance over downstream processing in biotech.

Program

9:00-10:00 Registration & networking
10:00-10:10 Welcome note - Prof. Davide Mattia
10:10-10:30CARMA WP2 Update - Dr Hannah Leese
10:30-11:20 Downstream Processing for Cellular Agriculture; need & future
10:30-11:00 Keynote speaker: TBC
11:00-11:20 Invited speaker: TBC
11:20-11:40 Downstream processing in Biopharmaceutics & lessons to learn
Invited speaker: Prof. Jerry Heng
11:40-12:30 Abstract / ESRs talks (10 min each)
12:30-13:00 Lunch
13:00-14:10 Poster session
14:10-14:30 Current downstream processing in Food industry and future with cell. Ag.
Invited speaker: Prof. Lilia Arhne
14:30-15:20 Abstract / ESRs talks (10 min each)
15:20-15:50 Coffee & Networking
15:50-16:30 Panel discussion
Challenges in Biotech downstream processing and how we can support each other in advancing biotech DSP.
16:30-17:00 ESRs prizes & Closing remarks

Speakers

Prof. Jerry Heng

Jerry Heng (JH) is currently a Professor in Particle Technology and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. JH obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London (2006) and a B.Eng in Chemical Engineering from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (2002). JH research focuses on surfaces and interfaces of particulate materials. A current key research activity of his group is in the area of nucleation and crystal growth, with the aim of developing crystallisation as a separation strategy for the purification of biopharmaceuticals. The Heng Group is supported by UK and EU research councils and industry, publishing >170 journal papers and 10 book chapters and successfully supervised 30 PhD students. JH is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Editor-in-Chief for Chemical Engineering Research and Design and a Thematic Editor for Particuology.

Prof. Lilia Arhne

Lilia Arhne is a Professor at Department of Food Science, Ingredient and Dairy Technology, University of Copenhagen. Lilia Arhne obtained her PhD in Food Science and Engineering from UCP Portugal/ University of California, Davis (1994). Her research focuses on understanding the effect of processing on physical, chemical and structural characteristics of foods, and uses this knowledge to develop new processes and products. She has worked with a large number of food matrixes and processes under study include both traditional and novel technologies. Her primary fields of research includes mild sustainable process technologies, technologies to produce dairy powders and concentrates, and Structure processing.

Prof. Daniel Bracewell

Daniel G. Bracewell is Professor of Bioprocess Analysis at the UCL Department of Biochemical Engineering. He has made major contributions to fundamentally understanding the recovery of biological products. His research is focused on the manufacture of biological products that are of therapeutic, diagnostic and industrial value to society. Generating over £10 million in research funds including collaborations with Thailand, India and the USA. He has authored more than 100 peer reviewed journal articles in the area to date and currently supervises 15 doctoral and postdoctoral projects, many of these studies are in collaboration with industry. One such project was the basis from which the spinout Puridify was created. It was acquired by GE Healthcare (now Cytiva) in 2017.

Dr. Nigel Jackson

Dr. Nigel Jackson is a principal engineer at Cytiva R&D. He obtained his PhD in biochemical engineering from UCL in 2006. He has 20 years of experience in Filtration R&D at Cytiva, including 2 years in the viral vector gene therapy R&D team. Nigel has multiple publications and conference presentations demonstrating understanding of the mechanisms involved in virus filtration and general bioprocessing. He has directed this knowledge into helping develop robust and effective new virus filters and many other Cytiva products and applications.

Time

09:00–17:00 GMT.