Mark Marten was selected as recipient of the James M. Van Lanen Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the BIOT Division. Mark received the award from Weichang Zhou, BIOT 2009 Chair at the ACS National Meeting in Washington DC.

Recipients of Bachelor's of Science in Chemical Engineering

Our B.S. graduates have accepted offers from companies such as MedImmune, Exxon, ECBC in Aberdeen, Lockheed Martin, and graduate schools such as Northwestern University, Cornell University, University of Delaware and UMBC.

From left to right:
Back: J. Ross, Tim, Ryan, Eric, Larry, Bob, Rob, Bobby.
Middle: Jessica, J. Leach, Amanda, Ashrith, T. Bayles, Mike, Nizeet, Olu, Aileen, T. Good.
Front: Fellipe, Joel, M. Castellanos.

Nizeet Aguilar ^
Fellipe F. Balieiro *
Eric C. Borman
Timothy D. Courtney **
Jessica E. Dewitt
Mike German ** ^
Joel M. Gwinn
Lawrence P. Hetzel *
Thomas C. Hsu (Minor: Mathematics and Statistics) ^
Amanda K. Karp * ^
Ryan Kostick *
Rob C. Low
Ashrith Mathias ^
Oluwaseun D. Olayiwola (Minor: Biological Sciences) ^
Adebimpe D. Oyede
Robert P. Reeves **
Aileen P. Richards*
Lauren A. Smalls-Mantey ^

* Cum Laude
** Manga Cum Laude
^ Biotechnology/Bioengineering Track

Recipients of a Master of Science degree in Chemical & Biochemical Engineering

From left to right: James Pallikal, Mariajosé Castellanos, Joe Piekarski, Nichole Au

The following M.S. graduates completed Master level course work and also worked with Faculty Mentors in their laboratories and have accepted offers of employment at ECBC.

Nichole Au
The INSPIRES Curriculum
Advisors: Taryn Bayles & Julie Ross

Yadira Castillo
Investigations of new chromatographic methods and materials
Advisor: Doug Frey

The following M.S. graduates completed a thesis describing original research endeavors and have accepted offers of employment at MedImmune or are continuing doctoral degrees in Chemical Engineering at UMBC.

Hui Guo (December 2008)
Thesis: Dispersion phenomena in micropellicular HPLC columns
Advisor: Doug Frey

James Pallikal (December 2008)
Thesis: Investigation of MUC1 in Alzheimer's applications
Advisor: Theresa Good

Joseph Piekarski
Thesis: Construction of a dual infection mechanism for HIV
Advisor: Mariajosé Castellanos

Recipients of a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Chemical & Biochemical Engineering

Left: Yonghyun (John) Kim and Mark Marten
Right: Julie Ross, Patrick Ymele-Leki, Irina Ramos, Theresa Good

The following Ph.D. graduates completed a doctoral thesis describing significant research contributions to their field and and have accepted offers of employment at MedImmune and postdoctoral fellowships at the Korean Samsung Cancer Center and Harvard Children Hospital.

Yonghyun (John) Kim (December 2008)
Thesis Proteomic identification of novel regulators and effectors of osmoadaptation and autophagy of model filamentous fungi Aspergillus nidulans
Advisor: Mark Marten

Irina Ramos
Thesis: Role of β-Amyloid structure and residue accessibility in cell interactions associated with Alzheimer’s disease
Advisor: Theresa Good

Patrick Ymele-Leki
Thesis: Quantitative analysis of the accumulation, architectural organization, detachment and reseeding of Staphylococcus aureus biofilms under physiological fluid shear conditions
Advisor: Julie Ross

Patrick Ymele-Leki successfully defended his PhD today. Patrick preformed his research in the Ross Lab. The title of his dissertation was "Quantitative analysis of the accumulation, architectural organization, detachment and reseeding of Staphylococcus aureus biofilms under physiological fluid shear conditions."

Irina Ramos successfully defended her PhD today. Irina preformed her research in the Good Lab. The title of her dissertation was "Role of β-Amyloid Structure and residue accessibility in cell interactions associated with Alzheimer’s disease."

Dr. David Klinke, West Virginia University

DATE/TIME/LOCATION:
Monday, April 6 12:00PM, TRC, Rm 206

TITLE:
A Bayesian Perspective on Understanding Cell Signaling Pathways using Mathematical Models

ABSTRACT:
Cellular response to extracellular stimuli is governed by biochemical reactions that allow the transfer of information from the cell membrane to the nucleus and back. The integrity of this mechanism for information processing is attributed to a series of dynamic protein-protein interactions. Decades of scientific scrutiny have revealed the molecular players in many cellular signaling networks. Yet how these molecular players create a dynamic flow of information – by interacting in space, in time, and in specific systems – remains relatively unknown. Our lab focuses on combining aspects of chemical kinetics, Bayesian inference, and proteomics to quantify the functional consequences of genetic variation. The functional consequences of interest give rise to differences in the flow of information within cellular signaling pathways. Our approach will be illustrated using two examples. To provide a context for these examples, I will provide a semi-biased review the current state-of-the-art in analyzing cell signaling pathways using mathematical models. The first example focuses on understanding differences in signaling pathways among cellular models of breast cancer. The second example focuses on understanding the regulation of Interleukin-12 signaling within naïve CD4+ T cells.

Taryn Bayles was selected as recipient of the USM 2009 Regents’ Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentoring. This award is the highest honor that the Board of Regents bestows to recognize exemplary faculty achievement.

Joe Piekarski successfully defended his MS today. Joe preformed his research in the Castellanos lab. The title of his dissertation was "Construction of a Dual Infection Mechanism for HIV."

Hui Guo successfully defended her MS today. Hui preformed her research in the Frey lab. The title of her dissertation was "Dispersion phenomena in micropellicular HPLC columns."

Prof. George Georgiou, PhD
Cockrell Family Regent’s Chair in Engineering #9
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology
The University of Texas at Austin

Every year our department remembers our beloved former colleague, Janice Lumpkin, by sponsoring the Lumpkin Memorial Lecture, which as been presented by some of the most prominent names in biochemical engineering.

DATE/TIME/LOCATION:
UMBC's Look Ahead Conference
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
3:30 – 6:30 pm

TITLE:
Engineering the Next Generation of Protein Therapeutics

ABSTRACT:
A major long-term interest of our group is the engineering of proteins for pharmaceutical and biotechnology applications. To this end, we have developed a set of high throughput screening techniques relying on bacterial expression and flow cytometry that enable the isolation of novel proteins with desired functions from ensembles (“libraries”) of hundreds of millions of protein variants. These studies have led to the engineering of antibodies exhibiting ultra-high antigen affinity, serum and/or novel effector functions, and of therapeutic enzymes that exhibit exquisite catalytic activity and optimal pharmacological properties. Examples that will be discussed as part of this talk include:
(a) The isolation, expression and therapeutic optimization (Fc engineering) of IgG in E.coli
(b) “Humanized” non-immunogenic enzymes for amino acid depletion in cancer.
(c) Proteases that exhibit exceptional activity and selectivity towards the cleavage of desired peptide targets.

Bhargavi Kondragunta, a third year Ph.D. student in Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, was selected to receive the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. This award is selected through a national competition each year. Bhargavi works with Dr’s Antonio Moreira and Govind Rao. Bhargavi’s project title: Quality by design using high throughput bioreactors with feed-back control (HTCB) to predict multivariable relationships. Bhargavi will use time course analysis with DNA micro arrays to establish comparability of HTCBs to bench scale during fed-batch bioreactor runs. Obtain design space variables, as well as multivariable equations between input process variables and output product attributes using statistical experimental design. Bhargavi earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the Osmania University, Hyderabad, India in 1995 and an M.S. in Chemical Engineering at Drexel University, Philadelphia. Bhargavi has also held several bioprocess engineering and scientist positions in Upstream Process Development and Technology Transfer for the past 9 year in biopharmaceutical companies in the US.

The Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) founded in 1946 is the leading global provider of science, technology and regulatory information and education for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical community. Its mission is to develop scientifically sound, practical technical information and resources for the pharmaceutical industry through the expertise of its global membership. In addition to facilitating development, testing and qualification of new technologies, sponsoring educational conferences and training courses, PDA publishes the PDA Journal of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology and the PDA Letter, which focuses on current industry and regulatory news. It continues to be a leading and influential contributor of information for the global regulatory and harmonization processes.

In recognition of the research efforts and influence of students impacting the pharmaceutical/biopharmaceutical industry, PDA and the PDA Journal of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology have established Pre-Doctoral Fellowship Program and the Annual Graduate Research Symposium. These programs were developed to promote applied research in areas of study relevant to the scientific foundations of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical product development, drug manufacturing and quality assurance technologies.