MICHAEL SHULER RECEIVES NATIONAL AWARD FOR HIS WORK AS ONE OF THE ‘FATHERS’ OF BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING
Society for Biological Engineering presents Shuler with inaugural James E. Bailey Award
CINCINNATI, OHIO, November 1, 2005 – In a ceremony during the Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), Michael Shuler was honored for his prestigious career in the field of biological engineering by the Society for Biological Engineering (SBE), an AIChE technological community. Shuler presented a lecture to the attendees on “Understanding and Using Microbes: Systems via Biology and the Biochemical Engineer.”
As professor and director of the biomedical engineering program at Cornell University, Professor Shuler was given the first ever James E. Bailey Award for Outstanding Contributions in Biological Engineering by SBE. Shuler and the late James E. Bailey were considered pioneers in the area of biotechnology. The award was endowed by Cytos Biotechnology, a company that Bailey helped to found.
Professor Shuler was a close professional collegue of Jay Bailey’s for almost 30 years. Professor Shuler acknowledged Bailey as “an articulate, visionary spokesperson for the field of biochemical engineering. His educational legacy touched many modern biochemical and biological engineers in the profession today.”
“Professor Shuler is universally recognized as a father of modern biochemical and bioprocess engineering,” said Daniel I. C. Wang, Chair of SBE. “His contributions to the community in research, education and service to the profession are without parallel.”
Professor Shuler was the first to advocate explicitly integrating molecular and cellular biology into the essence of bioprocess engineering. His ideas led to better understanding of chemical reactions within the cell, cellular regulation and cellular interactions in a large population quantitatively and in a predictable fashion. MIT’s Professor Greg Stephanopoulos, an SBE Board Member, said the work Professor Shuler has done on the single-cell model has encouraged the development of the field of metabolic engineering.
Along with research, Professor Shuler has had a major impact on the teaching of bioprocess engineering. His textbook, Bioprocess Engineering: Basic Concepts, has defined modern bioprocess engineering and, over the past 12 years, has been the most successful, and widely used, textbook in this area.
Professor Shuler is the James M. and Marsha McCormick Family Biomedical Engineering Department Chair and the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He is a member of the graduate fields of chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, microbiology, food science, and environmental toxicology.
In 1969 Professor Shuler received his degree in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame and in 1973 he received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota. He has been a visiting or guest professor nationally and internationally and has to his credit 214 refereed publications, seven patents and 35 book chapters. He also has edited or co-authored seven books.
He has received numerous awards including, most recently this year, the Asia Pacific Biochemical Engineering Conference Award and the Kelly Distinguished Lecturer at Purdue University. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and an inaugural Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
The James E. Bailey Award is presented to an individual who has had an important impact on bioengineering and whose achievements, either specific or general, have advanced the profession in any of its aspects.
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