Ellen Brune
Boston Mountain Biotech of Fayetteville has received a National Science Foundation grant to further its research into simplifying production of pharmaceutical proteins used in a variety of medical drugs.
The $224,779 federal grant is through the highly competitive Small Business Technology Transfer program, which funds research partnerships between small businesses and nonprofit research institutions. BMB will collaborate with a research group from North Carolina State University.
“It can cost half a billion to $1 billion in 10 years for pharmaceutical manufacturers to deliver a protein therapeutic from a lab to the manufacturing stage,” said BMB founder and principal investigator Ellen Brune. “Our company uses genetic engineering to make the purification process more efficient. We’re trying to help large pharmaceutical companies get their drugs to market cheaper and faster.”
Brune earned a doctorate in chemical engineering with a focus in bioprocessing from the University of Arkansas in 2013. As a graduate student, she created a series of custom strains of the bacteria Escherichia coli that improve the efficiency of the protein purification process on the front end of protein pharmaceutical production, the university said.
BMB is a UA startup located at the school’s Arkansas Research & Technology Park.
“We are very excited about being given the opportunity to continue the development of our Lotus platform with NSF support,” Brune said.
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