John G. Auniņš (left) and Jeffrey A. Hubbell (right)
AIChE and its Society for Biological Engineering (SBE) are honoring two of bioengineering’s top researchers.
Jeffrey A Hubbell receives the James Bailey Award for 2018
Jeffrey A. Hubbell, the Eugene Bell Professor in Tissue Engineering at the Univ. of Chicago’s Institute for Molecular Engineering, will receive the James Bailey Award for 2018.
The award, sponsored by Cytos Biotechnology, is named in honor of biotechnology pioneer Jay Bailey, and will be presented at the 2018 AIChE Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, PA, where Hubbell will present the Bailey Award Lecture on Tuesday, Oct. 30. He will discuss his work in regenerative medicine and immunotherapeutics in a talk entitled “Turning Immunity On and Off.”
Hubbell's research
Hubbell’s research in regenerative medicine concentrates on biomaterial matrices that mimic the extracellular matrix, and on growth factor/extracellular matrix interactions. In immunotherapeutics, he is engineering nanoparticle vaccines, tolerogenic (inverse) vaccines, and methods for targeted drug delivery.
He has co-founded three biomedical companies based on his technology: Focal, Inc. (Boston, MA), which was acquired by Genzyme; Kuros Biosurgery AG, (Zurich, Switzerland), a regenerative medicine firm; and Anokion SA (Lausanne, Switzerland), working in the domain of immunological tolerance. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and earned his PhD in chemical engineering at Rice Univ.
John G. Aunins receives the 2018 Daniel I. C. Wang Award
John G. Aunins, executive vice president and chief technology officer for Seres Therapeutics, Inc., will receive the SBE’s 2018 Daniel I. C. Wang Award for Excellence in Biochemical Engineering and deliver the associated lecture on Monday, Oct. 29.
Aunins's work
In his talk, “Lessons from a Life in Biopharma,” Aunins recaps his work developing vaccines and biologics, and illustrates not only what was accomplished but also why it was done the way it was. He will also touch on the creation of “bugs as drugs,” an emerging therapeutic modality for treating diseases that are caused by or exacerbated by the bacteria inhabiting the human body.
Aunins earned his PhD in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the supervision of Daniel I. C. Wang. Prior to joining Seres, he led process and product development teams at Merck. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and is an adjunct professor at the Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica (Oeiras, Portugal).
For more information about the Society for Biological Engineering and its awards, visit www.aiche.org/SBE.