SBE – July 2012

July 2012

June/July Biotechnology News

•	Bill Bentley and his team are developing tools that promise powerful new ways to combat catheter-based and other infections without provoking bacterial resistance to antibiotics. University of Maryland
•	A rewritable memory system, using short sections of DNA to hold data in bacterial cells, has been developed by Drew Endy and his team. The technique uses adapted enzymes to flip specific short sequences of DNA back and forth at will on chromosomes in E. coli, representing the ones and zeros of digital information. Stanford University
•	Researchers have developed a portable microscope that may reduce the time it takes to diagnose oral cancer. The probe could be used by doctors and dentists to diagnose oral cancer "in real-time." University of Texas, Austin
•	A cross-disciplinary collaboration among four research teams from three continents has developed novel peptides that have the potential to treat diseases involving inflammation, such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, stroke, reperfusion injuries, and sepsis. Princeton University
•	Development of recombinant Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells producing therapeutic proteins requires analyzing the quality proteins produced by many cell clones. A new study led by Daniel I.C. Wang finds a high-throughput method to analyze the intraclonal variability of 24 CHO cell subclones. Biotechnology Progress
•	Merck announced it would invest as a limited partner in a new $270 million biotech fund raised by Flagship Ventures. Merck won't choose the investments, but will advise newly formed companies. The money comes from Merck Research Ventures Fund, a strategic venture capital arm the company launched last September targeted at early-stage companies. Flagship Ventures

SBE News

Congratulations to Terry Papoutsakis (University of Delaware), SBE's 2012 James E. Bailey Award Recipient. Terry will be presenting the Bailey Lecture at the AIChE Annual Meeting on Tuesday, October 30th at 6:00 pm in Pittsburgh.

Save the Date for the D.I.C. Wang award lecture which will be held on Monday, October 29th at 3:15 pm during the AIChE Annual Meeting. The award lecture will be presented by Jim Swartz – inaugural award recipient.

Review SBE's latest Biosupplement focused on Bio-based Materials. SBE Advisory Board member San Yup Lee explains a new process that uses genetic engineering to produce PLA and its copolymers by direct fermentation in one step.

Save the Date. International Conference on Biomolecular Engineering. Jan. 13-16, 2013. Hyatt Pier Sisty Six. Fort Lauderdale, FL.

SBE Conferences Update

Register now for SBE's Sustainability in (Bio)Pharmaceuticals Conference to be held November 11-14, 2012 in San Juan, Puerto Rico and is co-chaired by Conchita Jimenez-Gonzalez (GSK) and Gene Schaefer (J&J). The conference will address multi-use vs. single use bioprocess decisions. Keynote speakers include SBE members Mauricio Futran (Rutgers) and Paul McKenzie (J&J), among others. The Call for Posters is open, submit your abstract today!

Call for Papers is now Open: SBE's Fourth International Conference on Biomolecular Engineering (ICBE) will be held January 13-16, 2013 in Fort Lauderdale, FL and co-chaired by Ali Khademhosseini (Harvard) and Kristala Prather (MIT). Keynote lectures will be given by George Church (Harvard Medical School), Jim Collins (Boston University), Nicholas Peppas (Univ. Texas) and Virginia Cornish (Columbia University).

Save the Date: SBE's 3rd International Conference on Accelerating Biopharmaceutical Development (AccBio 2013) will be held in February 24-26, 2013 in Coronado Island. Co-located with AccBio is Quality by Design in Biologics. Both meetings will review strategies, technical fundamentals, and industrial case studies, and will bring together industry, academia and regulators to address challenges and opportunities for biopharmaceutical development.

Student Corner

SBE would like to congratulate all the 2012 graduates! If you are still looking for the right job, please visit the SBE Job Board for positions geared towards biological engineering.

Congratulations to all ICBN poster award winners: Kyle Lampe (Stanford), Jinseok Park (John Hopkins) and Benjamin Li-Ping Lee (University of California, Berkeley).

SBE is hiring! Interested in learning more about the Technical Associate position, email us at bio@aiche.org.

May's protein was DNA Hydrolase. Guess this month's protein and you may be featured in the next newsletter.

BioCatalyst Fund. Your Support will help provide resources for the SBE Student member community.

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SBE's e-Connections is edited by Adrian Fay, Web Science Editor, with input from SBE staff. Contact us at bio@aiche.org.

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