Vassily Hatzimanikatis, an associate professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL; Lausanne, Switzerland), has been named the recipient of the 2014 International Metabolic Engineering Award. The award, presented every two years by the International Metabolic Engineering Society (IMES), a community within the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ (AIChE’s) Society for Biological Engineering, recognizes an outstanding career contributor to the field of metabolic engineering. Hatzimanikatis is being honored for developing new methods to model and analyze large metabolic networks and for demonstrating how such networks can be used to study biosynthetic pathways. The 2014 award is cosponsored by DSM.
The Metabolic Engineering Award and an associated lecture by Hatzimanikatis will be presented on June 18 at the IMES-sponsored Metabolic Engineering X conference, June 15–19, in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Hatzimanikatis, whose research is in the areas of systems biotechnology, bioinformatics, and biological systems, is known for his contributions to the metabolic modeling of many different microorganisms. After receiving a diploma in chemical engineering at the University of Patras (Greece), he earned MS and PhD degrees in chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, and later led a research group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Zurich, Switzerland). Prior to joining EPFL, Hatzimanikatis was an assistant professor at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL), and worked in industry at DuPont and Cargill, where he developed biocatalysts for the production of industrial chemicals.
Hatzimanikatis is Editor-in-Chief of Metabolic Engineering Communications; Senior Editor of Biotechnology Journal; and an associate editor of the journals Metabolic Engineering, Biotechnology and Bioengineering, and Integrative Biology. He has published more than 70 articles and is co-inventor of three patents. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and a founding director of the International Metabolic Engineering Society.
The International Metabolic Engineering Society promotes the use of metabolic engineering — the optimization of the genetic and regulatory processes within cells — as an enabling science for bio-based production of advanced materials, pharmaceuticals, food ingredients, chemicals, and fuels. One of its venues for collaboration and information exchange is the biannual Metabolic Engineering Conference, where practitioners share knowledge and discuss current developments made in the field.
Previous recipients of the International Metabolic Engineering Award are: Jay Keasling (2012); Eleftherios Papoutsakis (2010); Sang Yup Lee (2008); James Liao (2006); Jens Nielsen (2004); Gregory Stephanopoulos (2002); and James E. Bailey (2000).
About SBE:
Established in 2004, the Society for Biological Engineering is a technological community for engineers and applied scientists integrating biology with engineering. Members of SBE come from a broad spectrum of industries and disciplines and share in SBE’s mission of realizing the benefits of bioprocessing, biomedical and biomolecular applications. http://bio.aiche.org.
About AIChE:
AIChE is a professional society of nearly 45,000 chemical engineers in 100 countries. Its members work in corporations, universities and government using their knowledge of chemical processes to develop safe and useful products for the benefit of society.
Through its varied programs, AIChE continues to be a focal point for information exchange on the frontier of chemical engineering research in such areas as energy, sustainability, biological and environmental engineering, nanotechnology, and chemical plant safety and security. www.aiche.org.