Jonathan S. Dordick is Institute Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, with joint appointments in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Biological Sciences, and an adjunct appointment at Rockefeller University. Dr. Dordick is Special Advisor to the President for Strategic Initiatives.
He received his B.A. degree in Biochemistry and Chemistry from Brandeis University and his Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At Rensselaer, he served as the Vice President for Research, the Director of the Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies, and Department Chair. He is the co-Director of the Heparin Applied Research Center and is the Director of the SARS-CoV-2 Testing Laboratory for Rensselaer. Prior to joining Rensselaer, he was Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at the University of Iowa, where he also served as the founding Associate Director of the Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing. He has served the biochemical engineering community as a previous chairman of the Biotechnology Division of the American Chemical Society and as an Editor of Biotechnology & Bioengineering.
Dr. Dordick has made foundational contributions to enzyme technology, microscale cell culture engineering, drug discovery and human toxicology, and biomanufacturing. He pioneered the development of enzymatic and chemoenzymatic methods for new materials synthesis, initiated the new field of molecular bioprocessing, which combines biocatalytic molecular diversity and in vitro metabolic pathway engineering with high-throughput and high-content microfluidic- and microarray-based tools to generate biologically active compounds, and greatly expanded the fundamental understanding of enzymatic catalysis in abiotic environments critical for chemical and pharmaceutical processing. Finally, he has used biomolecular discovery and engineering to address clinical translation in areas of infectious disease, neurological diseases and anticoagulant therapy.
Prof. Dordick is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Inventors. He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers. He has received numerous awards, including the Amgen Award in Biochemical and Molecular Engineering, Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Marvin J. Johnson Award and the Elmer Gaden Award both of the American Chemical Society, the International Enzyme Engineering Award, and an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award. He has cofounded several companies, including EnzyMed (now part of Albany Molecular Research, Inc.), Solidus Biosciences, Inc., and Redpin Therapeutics. He has also served on multiple White House-sponsored panels and committees in biomanufacturing.
Dr. Dordick has published over 400 papers and is an inventor/co-inventor on nearly 50 patents and patent applications.