BIOT Announces Winners Of Division Awards

The ACS Division of Biochemical Technology (BIOT) has announced the winners of its annual awards. They will be presented during the fall ACS national meeting in Washington, D.C.

David P. Bartel, professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will receive the 2009 David Perlman Memorial Lectureship, sponsored by Genzyme, for his research on the role of microRNAs in gene expression.

James C. Liao, Chancellor's Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, will receive the Marvin J. Johnson Award in Microbial & Biochemical Technology, sponsored by Pfizer, for his work in metabolic engineering and systems biology.

The James M. Van Lanen Distinguished Service Award will go to Mark R. Marten, professor of chemical and biochemical engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, for his leadership and dedication to BIOT.

Edward Miller Jr., vice president of R&D at DuPont Tate & Lyle BioProducts, will accept the Industrial Biotechnology Award on behalf of DuPont, Genencor, and Tate & Lyle. The award honors organizations or individuals for achievement in the commercialization of novel processes exploiting biochemical technology.

Ravi Kane, P. K. Lashmet Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is the winner of the Young Investigator Award, sponsored by Genentech. The award recognizes Kane's contributions to nanobiotechnology, including the design of potent polyvalent toxin inhibitors, the discovery of enhanced protein stabilization on nanomaterials, and remote nanotube-mediated protein deactivation.

The two winners of the 2008 W. H. Peterson Award are Prateek Gupta of Cornell University for his oral presentation, "Hypersecretion of Recombinant Proteins in E. coli by Translation Engineering," and Shailendra Singh of UC Riverside for his poster, "Biologically Programmed Synthesis of Hybrid Semiconductor CdSe/ZnS Nanocrystals." The Peterson Award, sponsored by Invitrogen/Gibco Cell Culture, is given annually to student members who present outstanding research in sessions sponsored by BIOT at ACS national meetings.

Mark E. Davis, Warren & Katharine Schlinger Professor of Chemical Engineering at California Institute of Technology, will receive the Elmer Gaden Award for his publication in Biotechnology & Bioengineering, "Impact of Tumor-Specific Targeting and Dosing Schedule on Tumor Growth Inhibition after Intravenous Administration of siRNA-Containing Nanoparticles." The award is sponsored by John Wiley & Sons and is presented for a paper of exceptional originality and likely impact.

Stephan Lütz, research investigator and unit head for bioreactions at the Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research in Basel, Switzerland, will receive the 2009 Biotechnology & Bioengineering D. I. C. Wang Award. The award honors a distinguished young researcher who has shown a sustained commitment to publishing in the journal Biotechnology & Bioengineering. Lütz's work focuses on the practical application of biocatalysis for the synthesis of fine chemicals.

Abraham Lenhoff, Gore Professor of Chemical Engineering and director of the Center for Membrane Protein Production & Characterization at the University of Delaware, will receive the Alan S. Michaels Award for the Recovery of Biological Products. His research is on the application of thermodynamics, transport phenomena, biophysics, and colloid science to protein separations and phase behavior.