Michael Butler is a Principal Investigator in Cell Technology and former Chief Scientific Officer at the National Institute of Bioprocessing Research & Training (NIBRT), Ireland, Adjunct Full Professor in University College Dublin as well as and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the University of Manitoba, Canada.
He holds degrees (BSc /MSc) in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the Universities of Birmingham (UK) and Waterloo (Canada) as well as a PhD from King’s College, London. After a period of several years as Principal Lecturer in Biotechnology at Manchester Metropolitan University Dr. Butler was appointed as Professor and NSERC/Apotex Industrial Research Chair in Fermentation Technology in the Department of Microbiology, University of Manitoba.
In 2008, he was named Distinguished Professor and from 2010-2017 was the Scientific Director of MabNet, an NSERC-funded Canadian national network focused on platform processes for monoclonal antibody production. His other appointments have included Associate Dean of Scientific Research at the University of Manitoba and Visiting Scientist at MIT (USA), Animal Virus Research Institute (Pirbright, UK) and the Universities of Oxford and Rio de Janeiro.
His research work focuses on the development of bioprocesses using mammalian cells for the production of recombinant proteins, monoclonal antibodies and viral vaccines. He is particularly interested in the bioprocess conditions that can be used to control the biochemical structure of glycoproteins and hence the quality of biopharmaceuticals. He has always collaborated closely with industry and is a past recipient of the prestigious Canadian national Synergy Award for University-Industry innovation (2004). He has been President of the International Society for Protein Expression in Animal Cells (2011-13) and on the editorial board of several journals and major reference works including Encyclopedia of Cell Technology, Biotechnology Advances, Biotechnology and Bioengineering and Comprehensive Biotechnology.
He is the founder of Biogro Technologies Inc., a spin-off company dedicated to serum-free media development. He has authored seven books on mammalian cell technology and over 180 scientific articles (with > 4,500 citations).