Japanese–English glossary
Downstream processing
ダウンストリームdaunsutorīmu
Also written 下流
The recovery and purification steps after harvest: clarification, capture (Protein A chromatography for antibodies), virus inactivation, polishing chromatography, virus filtration and ultrafiltration/diafiltration into the formulation buffer. Its job is to remove process-related impurities, product variants and viruses while keeping yield. Japanese documents use the loanword and a native term meaning 'downstream process' (下流工程). The titer and impurity load delivered by upstream processing largely set the size and cost of downstream.