Smart Biotech Scientist | The CMC and Bioprocessing Podcast for Process Development and Manufacturing Leaders
The go-to CMC and biomanufacturing podcast for bioprocess development scientists and CMC leaders scaling biologics into regulatory-ready therapies with less trial and error.
Practical, execution-focused, and strategic guidance on CMC development, tech transfer, scale-up, GMP readiness, CDMO partnerships, and manufacturing economics for biologics, cell and gene therapies, cultivated meat, and biomaterials.
Hosted by Dr. David Brühlmann, CMC strategist, former Bioprocess Innovation Manager at Merck, PhD in glycoengineering, and close to 20 years of biomanufacturing experience. Smart Biotech Scientist delivers actionable insights for the people doing the hard work of turning promising molecules into scalable, regulatory-ready therapies.
This podcast is for you if:
- You are a process development scientist or CMC lead managing a technology transfer, scale-up, or CDMO partnership
- You are a biologics developer working on upstream or downstream process development, cell culture optimization, or GMP manufacturing readiness
- You are a biotech founder preparing for an IND filing or Series A fundraise, and need a CMC strategy that holds up under investor and regulatory scrutiny
- You are building or advising an early-stage biopharma team and need to make smart manufacturing decisions with limited resources
What you will learn:
CMC strategy and regulatory planning, bioprocess scale-up from lab to clinical and commercial manufacturing, cell culture process development and media optimization, technology transfer best practices, CDMO selection and partnership management, hybrid modeling, manufacturing economics, continuous manufacturing, digitization, and Industry 4.0 in biopharma.
Top 10 life sciences podcast with 200+ episodes and guests from Merck, FUJIFILM Irvine Scientific, Cytiva, KBI Biopharma, Eppendorf, and biotech innovators worldwide.
New episodes released weekly. Subscribe and join 400+ biotech leaders already using these insights to accelerate development, reduce manufacturing costs, and de-risk scale-up.
Next Steps:
Visit the Website: https://smartbiotechscientist.com
Email us: hello@bruehlmann-consulting.com
Smart Biotech Scientist | The CMC and Bioprocessing Podcast for Process Development and Manufacturing Leaders
219: From 10,000 Structures to 1.8 Billion Interactions: Breaking the Data Bottleneck to Engineer Efficacious Therapeutics with Troy Lionberger - Part 1
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Antibody therapeutics have transformed modern medicine, but for many scientists, developing new candidates still feels like searching for a needle in a haystack—a slow, expensive, and unpredictable process. Structural biology and high-throughput data generation are now collapsing that haystack, offering unprecedented visibility into the molecular handshake that drives life: protein-protein interactions.
In this episode, David Brühlmann sits down with Troy Lionberger, Chief Business Officer at A-Alpha Bio, for an in-depth discussion on protein-protein interactions and how advances in data generation and machine learning are transforming antibody discovery and drug development.
Troy Lionberger shares his journey into biotechnology, challenges long-held beliefs about antibody development, and explains how Alphabio's high-throughput affinity measurements are shortening timelines and improving outcomes for therapeutic development.
In this episode, you’ll learn about:
- The historical and current challenges in characterizing these interactions at scale (06:22)
- How new technologies—especially high-throughput platforms—are changing the needle-in-the-haystack approach (08:40)
- A comparison of traditional in vivo and in vitro antibody discovery methods, along with their strengths and limitations (09:06)
- The evolving role of AI and machine learning in antibody discovery and lead optimization (12:11)
- Real-world examples of how A-Alpha Bio’s approach is compressing years of work into months without sacrificing quality (13:58)
- The science behind A-Alpha Bio’s AlphaSeq technology and how it leverages yeast display and genomics for large-scale affinity measurements (20:43)
- The practical affinity range the technology can measure, covering most therapeutic applications (23:25)
Whether you’re a scientist navigating CMC or a biotech professional curious about next-generation workflows, this episode offers practical insights into both traditional and emerging methodologies in the field.
Connect with Troy Lionberger:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/troylionberger
A-Alpha Bio website: www.aalphabio.com
Next step:
Need fast CMC guidance? → Get rapid CMC decision support here
One bad CDMO decision can cost you two years and your Series A. If you're navigating tech transfer, CDMO selection, or IND prep, let's talk before it gets expensive. Two slots open this month.