Engineering Conferences International (ECI) (info@engconfintl.org) and the Cell Culture Engineering (CCE) XII Conference (http://www.engconfintl.org/10ac.html) are proud to announce Prof. Michael J. Betenbaugh, as the winner of the 2010 Cell Culture Engineering Award. Mike Betenbaugh (http://www.jhu.edu/chembe/faculty-template/MichaelBetenbaugh.html) is Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Professor Betenbaugh's research has had a large impact on both fundamental and applied aspects of cell culture engineering over the past 20 years. His major contribution to the field is the concept that manipulating a cell's production machinery should be an integral part of the optimization of cell culture systems. He recognized early in his professional career that cell death and post-translational processing of proteins in eukaryotic cells often limits the productivity of insect and mammalian cell expression systems, and he pioneered the application of metabolic engineering to cell culture processes.
The first important area in metabolic engineering he worked on was the re-engineering of the cell's glycosylation machinery aiming for optimal, human-like protein glycosylation.
A second important area of metabolic engineering in cell culture was the manipulation of the apoptotic machinery of the cells in order to delay cell death and thus increase productivity.
His molecular-based approach of cell re-engineering represents a research paradigm that many others in the field have since embraced. Mike and his students have also devised novel analytical methods that enabled researchers to elucidate specific bottlenecks which can then be addressed via metabolic engineering. Also, Mike was one of the earliest academic researchers to exploit genomic tools to alter cellular performance.
Mike's former graduate students have positions at many of the major biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Furthermore, his former students have landed prestigious positions at international research and industrial institutes in Australia, Taiwan, Thailand, and Malaysia.
His patents on glycosylation engineering have been licensed to Merck and his patents on antiapoptosis engineering have been licensed by several biotechnology companies and collaborators including Bayer, Biogen Idec, Centocor, and Biomarin.
Professor Betenbaugh will receive the 2010 Cell Culture Engineering Award at the Cell Culture Engineering XII conference, April 25-30, 2010, at Banff, Alberta, Canada, and will deliver the Award lecture during the next (2012) CCE conference.
About the Cell Culture Engineering Award
This prestigious Award (formerly known as the Merck CCE award, and supported by Merck & Co., Inc. until 2008) is to recognize outstanding contributions to the field of Cell Culture Technology & Engineering, and significant service and dedication to the profession. The award was established in 2001, and is given bi-annually at the Cell Culture Engineering conference (ECI Conferences).
Former recipients were: Wei-Shou Hu (2002), Eleftherios T. Papoutsakis (2004), W. Robert Arathoon (2006), and Martin Fussenegger (2008)