UCLA Engineering: UCLA Engineer Magazine

UCLA Engineering Students Help Open Biotechnology Facility

Baxter's Los Angeles Fractionation Complex

Last summer, 12 students from the chemical and biomolecular engineering department helped Baxter start up its new Los Angeles Fractionation Complex, a facility that manufactures plasma-derived therapeutic proteins. The facility is the largest and most automated plasma operation in the world.

Interns from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science were part of a team of 150 engineers, technicians, and operators that helped get the new plant up and running. The students gained real-world engineering experience while benefiting the company with their talent and hard work.

“Within 30 days, all of the interns were functioning at a high level,” said Rob Carter, Director of Manufacturing at the Los Angeles facility. “The students demonstrated their ability to learn rapidly, use their critical thinking skills, diagnose problems, and offer ideas for resolving issues.”

Baxter manufactures naturally occurring therapeutic proteins and has been working with plasmas since the 1930s, creating new treatments for people who are critically ill.

The UCLA interns worked on product testing and environmental monitoring testing, serving as lab technicians, electronic batch record administrators, and buffer compounding operators, among other assignments.

Baxter is one of the first therapeutic protein companies to make the change to electronic batch records used to show the material was made in compliance with FDA specifications. Under the new electronic system, the review time for each batch will be trimmed from three weeks to just five minutes. To demonstrate that the electronic records are accurate, the company created a manually recorded batch record for each set of electronic data on the initial batches.

“In the new facility, the plasma batches require approximately 13,000 entries per batch,” explained Carter. “This was the first time we have tried electronic batch records, and we had four interns working on the project. All of them demonstrated a strong technical ability and did an outstanding job.”

Luan Vu, a chemical engineering senior, helped with the manual batch records used to verify the electronic data. Over the course of his internship, Vu’s team also became responsible checking the previous day’s process for irregularities.

“I learned a great deal about how data is collected and organized for a major biomedical business. I also learned a little about some of the programming that is done for the system,” said Vu. “Overall, this summer internship was a terrific experience for me. The people I worked with were very professional and kind.”

Another set of interns from UCLA were working on the buffer compound system. The company uses 20 different buffers, including salt and alcohol solutions, which are used to stabilize the plasmas. The set-up in the new facility uses complicated electronic controls to mix, form, and create the buffers.

Duyen Diep, a senior chemical and biomolecular engineering student worked on the large-scaled automated buffer compound system.

“I learned a lot of things not covered in class, moving beyond the basics and theory to real conditions, which helped me better understand the process,” said Diep. “I’m interested in a career in the pharmaceutical biotechnology industry, so it was a perfect fit for me.”

Although she had expected they would have her working on paper-pencil problems, Diep was able to participate in real tests, adjusting the system as needed to correct for errors. She is still working at Baxter part-time, and will begin full-time after she graduates.

“My internship gave me a broad understanding of the industry. We were sharing knowledge across teams and working on a lot of different pieces of the puzzle, and I gained a broad picture of the facility and how it operates.”

According to Carter, “This was our first experience with significant numbers of interns. We were very pleased with the contribution these students made to our business and anticipate hiring a similar number again this summer.”

- Marlys Amundson