Millennial Launches NanoPak-B Biologic Carbon Microbeads Early Access Cohort Program
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
Join our exclusive early access program for NanoPak-B biologic carbon microbead base matrices and ion-exchange media.
NanoPak-B is Millennial Scientific’s new product suite for biologic purification using fast-flow,
mechanically rigid, carbon-based microbeads with tunable micron-scale (greater than 1 µm) pore architectures and porosities. This Early Access Cohort is intended for groups that want first access to a new class of large-pore carbon microbeads and are interested in helping define which base matrices and ion-exchange formats become the first commercial NanoPak-B products.
Who This Program Is For
We are prioritizing downstream process development groups working on biologic modalities where large, accessible pores may be especially valuable, including:
Viral vectors such as adeno-associated virus (AAV), lentiviral systems and virus-like particles
Messenger RNA (mRNA), plasmid DNA, Lipid nucleic acid nanoparticle, and other large nucleic-acid assemblies
Exosomes, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates (AOCs), CRISPR ribonucleoprotein (RNP) assemblies, and related large biomolecular complexes.
These applications are often constrained by diffusion-limited media, which can lead to low capacity, slow processing, and limited pore accessibility for large targets.
Available Evaluation Formats
Early Access participants may evaluate a defined set of NanoPak-B carbon microbeads in ligand-ready or pre-functionalized forms, depending on the agreed study plan. Current formats include:
Hydroxyl ligand-ready supports for further activation and custom functionalization.
Epoxide-activated supports for coupling Protein A/G, peptides, and other amine-containing ligands.
Strong- and weak-anion-exchange formats, including quaternary ammonium and tertiary amine chemistries.
Strong- and weak-cation-exchange formats, including sulfopropyl and carboxylic acid chemistries.
What We Hope To Learn
The Early Access Cohort is designed to evaluate three main questions:
Can large biomolecular targets access and traverse the internal micron-scale pore network of the beads?
How do NanoPak-B formats compare with current media in dynamic capacity, purification quality, and breakthrough behavior?
How do the beads perform mechanically in packed beds with respect to backpressure, compression, cleaning, and cycling?
Testing scope can be tailored to each participant’s development resources, while Millennial Scientific manages materials synthesis, chemistry optimization, and iterative platform refinement.
Development Status
NanoPak-B materials are pre-commercial, development-stage products intended for research use only. Pore architecture, porosity, surface chemistry, and ligand density may be refined during the program as application-specific performance trends are identified, and successful configurations may transition into future commercial NanoPak-B formats.
Join the Early Access Cohort
Groups interested in the NanoPak-B Early Access Cohort should contact us at inquiry@millennialscientific.com, call us at 855 388 2800, or fill out our online contact form with a brief description of their target modality, purification mode, current technology limitations, and planned evaluation scope.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are you incorporating graphite microparticles?
These microbeads are engineered with tunable micron-scale through-pores (greater than 1 µm) and defined porosities (10–50%). This architecture is designed to enable convective mass transport and to reduce dependence on diffusion-limited transport during chromatographic operation.
The incorporation of graphite microparticles provides several functional advantages:
Structural reinforcement to reduce bed compaction and column bypass under high-velocity operating conditions.
A stable covalent scaffold for hydrophilic crosslinker anchoring.
Surface templating through molecular pi-pi interactions that help project polymer chains in an open, accessible conformation, thereby improving ligand coupling efficiency.
Does graphite create specificity issues during purification?
Based on preliminary internal work, the platform shows minimal non-specific protein adsorption, broad pH stability (1–14), and tolerance to elevated temperatures and concentrated sodium hydroxide (NaOH), supporting cleaning-in-place and sanitization workflows.
Graphite in these microbeads is part of a tunable composite architecture. When hydrophilic crosslinkers and surface coatings are used, the graphitic character is masked so that the bead functions as a mechanically robust base matrix for affinity, ion-exchange, size-exclusion, and related purification modes. In these formats, selectivity is governed by the surface chemistry and attached ligands rather than by the graphite itself.
Are graphite beads brittle under pressure?
Although graphite is often perceived as brittle in bulk form, Millennial Scientific uses micrographite as one component within an engineered composite microbead. In practice, these beads have shown strong pressure tolerance in packed-column testing, including dynamic pressure exposures up to 9500 psi without observed fines formation or bead fracture, and they have performed reliably in HPLC applications.
If both NanoPak microbeads contain graphite, why are some hydrophilic and others hydrophobic?
The key point is that graphite alone does not define the surface behavior. The surrounding polymer chemistry and the amount of graphite used determine whether the microbead is hydrophilic or hydrophobic.
For NanoPak-B large-pore biologics microbeads, the microbead uses a hydrophilic crosslinking network rich in hydroxyl groups and only a small amount of graphite, mainly for mechanical strength. The hydrophilic network covers and binds to the graphite surface, so proteins see a hydrophilic environment with low non-specific binding and strong protein compatibility.
For NanoPak-C reverse-phase microbeads, the microbeads use a hydrophobic crosslinking network and a higher graphite loading, which increase hydrophobic surface area and support strong retention in reverse-phase separations.
A simple way to think about it is this: in NanoPak-B, graphite is hidden inside a hydrophilic coating, while in NanoPak-C, graphite is part of a hydrophobic environment. This makes graphite a multifunctional component that reinforces the bead while allowing surface interactions to be tuned through polymer chemistry.
