Bioengineering Heparin – Proof-of-concept for a production platform of bioengineered mammalian cell-derived heparin

PhD defence by Magnus Nørregaard Nissen Grønset

Assessment Committee

Professor Simon Holst Bekker-Jensen, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Copenhagen (Chairperson)
Associate professor John Shorter, Roskilde University
Professor Lena Kjellén, Uppsala University

Supervisors

Associate Professor Rebecca Louise Miller
Associate Professor Thomas Charles Richard Miller

Department

Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine

Graduate Programme

Cellular and Genetic Medicine

Place

Building 7 (Mærsk Tower), Room: 7.15.92, Blegdamsvej 3B, 2200 København N

Email address to gain access to the thesis: mgronset@sund.ku.dk.
You will either receive a copy of the thesis or be informed where you can read a physical copy.
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Short description of the thesis

The candidate's PhD thesis investigates the potential for the production of a mammalian cell-derived bioengineered heparin, an anticoagulant drug used to treat and prevent thrombosis. Heparin is on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines and is today sourced from animals. Using a combination of genetic engineering of mammalian cells, molecular biology, and biochemical analyses, the thesis dissects the biosynthetic pathway of glycosaminoglycans in Chinese hamster ovary cells for the design of an anticoagulant cell-derived heparin-like heparan sulfate structure that, when decorating specifically designed recombinant secretory GAG-carrying proteoglycan scaffolds expressed in CHO cells, lays the foundation for a proof-of-concept of a novel production platform of mammalian cell-derived bioengineered heparin.