Team:SCU-China/Consultation/Purify
HUMAN PRACTICE
THE INTERVIEW OF PURITY
SUMMARY
By interviewing Mr. Qiling Xie who comes from Purify, a professional compounds-purifying (Cordycepin is one of their main target products) company in Chengdu, we have a much deeper understanding of the status of production and sales of Cordycepin especially about the purification of Cordycepin and we also get that the yield is the golden rule in the industry. Without the worries about the technical problems in the purification of Cordycepin, we will do more work about increasing the yield. This will help us build a much more industry-friendly project.
THE HARVEST
To design an industry-friendly project, we cannot only do experiments in the lab, so we go to the Purify, a professional compounds-purifying (Cordycepin is one of their main target products) company in Chengdu, to learn about the information about the industrial status of Cordycepin purification. After getting in contact in advance, the representations of SCU_China interview Mr. Qiling Xie, the deputy general manager of Purify and the senior engineer.
As the technical consultant of the Cordycepin purification, Mr. Xie not only leads us to visit the professional equipment of Cordycepin-purifying but helps us have a much deeper understanding of the status of production, purification, and sales of Cordycepin as well, which is a great help to us to make our project better.
What we most want to thank is giving us the basic information in the purification industry which is a huge obstacle in the way to make our project more industry-friendly. It makes us understand that there are not existing huge technical or financial problems in the combined production and purification of Cordycepin and Pentostatin and also helps us know the basic requirement for the substrate about the Cordycepin purity of raw materials, which can make it clear that what kinds of product do we exactly need to get from our lab.
Because of Mr. Xie’s explanation about purification, we also learned that the existing purification technology is very mature. Thanks to this, we can get free from designing the optimal purification technology when implementing our idea, and we can put more energy to improve the problem to increase the yield.
After having a clear understanding of our project, Mr. Xie was optimistic about its prospects and he also expressed the willingness to use the raw materials we produce if we have substantive results.
We have a great harvest in this interview. Our project has been affirmed by industrial personnel and we also get some constructive advice from it. Above all, we know that the yield is the golden rule in the industry, we must consider more about the yield not just whether we can make it if we do want to make our project becoming more industrialized. After learning that the existing purification technology is very mature, we decided to pay more attention to the yield of our project, because we no longer have to worry about the purification of Cordycepin.
APPENDIX: THE SUMMARY OF INTERVIEW
Question 1: Since your company mainly purifies Cordycepin, we hope to have a brief understanding of the production methods of the upstream raw materials used by your company.
Answer 1: There are many production methods for upstream raw materials, including the use of silkworm-treated silkworm cocoons as medium to culture Cordyceps to obtain bacterial cells. And another method is to culture the bacteria in a liquid medium without obtaining shaped cells. We can also get Cordycepin in the biosynthesis way. But the market value of two methods of cultivation and synthesis is very different. The market price of the synthetical Cordycepin is about tens of thousands yuan for one ton, but the market price of the extracted product is several hundreds of thousands yuan per kilograms.
Question 2-1: We have learned that the Cordycepin-related production of your company is to purify the crude extract of Cordycepin. Can you tell me about the technology used to purify the Cordycepin?
Answer 2-1: At present, firstly, the raw materials are crudely extracted, then purified by chromatography. Finally, we will purify and recrystallize them for further purification. In our company, the way we mainly used is by ion exchange columns (better) and by silica gel columns. The cost of column purification is not very high, and the price between different types of purification columns is also not very large.
Question 2-2: What are the requirements for the substrate to be purified?
Answer 2-2: The purpose of column purification is to increase the concentration to 50~60% to make sure that the purity of the recrystallization product can reach 99%.To ensure the efficiency of the subsequent purification step, the Cordycepin purity of the raw material must reach by 1%. Therefore, the basic requirement for the substrate is the Cordycepin purity of raw materials must be around 1%.
Question 2-3: If it is convenient, can you tell us about the cost and efficiency of doing this?
Answer 2-3: We can increase the Cordycepinpurity from one percent to ninety-nine percent by doing this. And the effect of the ion exchange column is best, but the efficiency of other columns is not bad yet.
Question 2-4: Finally, is there any improvement in the existing technology?
Answer 2-4: Column purification is already a relatively mature technology. I do not find there are places for improvement, during the production and using process, at present.
Question 2-4: Finally, is there any improvement in the existing technology?
Answer 2-4: Column purification is already a relatively mature technology. I do not find there are places for improvement, during the production and using process, at present.
Question 3-1: The project of SCU_China is to use Saccharomyces Cerevisiae to produce Cordycepin and Pentostatin in a low-cost way. We would like to know if you have the desire to use our raw materials for purification if we can finally get the results we envision.
Answer 3-1: If you can make it in the end and get the relevant products. You can give it to us for testing and purification. We also have fermenters here, which can be used for industrial testing. If the yield is good, plus two products, our company is very willing to use your raw materials for purification.
Question 3-2: If using our raw materials, do we need to make extensive changes to existing purification technologies and equipment?
Answer 3-2: There is no need to make too many changes. From the aspect of purification, the technology and equipment we used can be satisfied. This technology is also relatively mature so you need not face too many problems.
Question 3-3: From the perspective of the company, do you have any comments or suggestions on our subject?
Answer 3-3: This depends on the situation of your next experiment because you have no substantive results yet. One important thing that needs to pay attention to is that if you want to use it in the industry in the future, you need to consider more about the yield when designing, not just whether you can make it.
Question 4: We also have a question about the subsequent purification. In our scenario, it is expected to achieve the combined production of Cordycepin and Pentostatin. So, for Cordycepin, does the presence of Pentostatin lead to an increase in the difficulty of purification or a significant increase in the cost of purification? Because they are structurally similar, the similarity is still relatively large.
Answer 4: Regarding the purification of Cordycepin and Pentostatin, the purification technique is not troublesome. And the cost of that is not very high and acceptable. We can do some refined liquid phase tests for further researching.
Question 5: The last question, we also hope to understand, what are the main customers of your company's Cordycepin products? (Scientific OR Research OR Medical Care)
Answer 5: On the whole, it is used for scientific research, and I never heard about using it like drugs (not approved for use as drugs yet), but the United States is known to undergo three clinical trials. Besides, there are some Cordycepin-related health care products, and the demand for it is large. The purity requirements for those kinds of health care products are not too high. But they pay further attention to whether the product is natural.
