Selina Schrader

Formulation of the active pharmaceutical ingredients is an important part of the drug development process: A well-designed formulation ensures that the active ingredient is delivered to the therapeutic target in the right dosage and via the appropriate route of administration so as to achieve the desired therapeutic effect and minimize adverse side effects. With the aim to develop formulation systems for various biopharmaceuticals, a corresponding working group is being established at the Braunschweig-based Fraunhofer ITEM Division of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology. Selina Schrader is part of the team.

The graduate biologist started at Fraunhofer ITEM in Braunschweig in the fall of 2021, initially with a project addressing the formulation of bacteriophages. Not least through the Corona pandemic, RNA compounds increasingly came into focus, and the Fraunhofer project RNAuto was launched to develop automated production technologies for mRNA-based pharmaceuticals. In this comprehensive project, Selina Schrader is collaborating with colleagues from six other Fraunhofer institutes. Her part is bioprocess development and mRNA formulation. Packaged in lipid nanoparticles, the RNA molecules are meant to be delivered to the target cells in a safe and targeted manner, shielded from degradation.

After receiving her master's degree in biology, Selina Schrader began working in research and development, but increasingly took an interest in translating research into real-world applications. This led her to Fraunhofer, where the focus is on applied research. At present, Selina Schrader spends a lot of time working in the lab. "Especially now that we are setting up the formulation group, I first go through all the steps myself and optimize them until the process is established," the researcher explains. The processes first have to work at laboratory scale. In the RNAuto project, this is being taken care of by the team led by Dr. Christian Bär, head of the Working Group on Regenerative Cardiology at Fraunhofer ITEM in Hannover. Schrader then scales up the process to a slightly larger scale. Her starting point for this is a template DNA, which forms the basis for enzymatic RNA production. The template DNA is first amplified and transcribed into RNA. The next step is to purify the RNA and develop an optimal packaging for it. Speaking about the project, Selina Schrader says: "It provides a good opportunity to get to know and understand the whole process from the beginning, that is, from the therapeutic molecule to the packaged, formulated and finally filled drug, and thus develop a formulation system that can be used across a wide range of biologics."

She spends part of her working time in the laboratories of Fraunhofer ITEM in Braunschweig and the other part at PVZ, the Center of Pharmaceutical Engineering at TU Braunschweig, which offers excellent equipment and a very good basis for setting up formulation systems. Selina Schrader enjoys working in the “lab” in her free time as well – at home in her kitchen, where she likes to bake macarons and other treats. To make sure these turn out well, she also had to try out many things, much like what her research work in the lab requires.