Worcester Polytechnic Institute will hold its second annual Advanced Biomanufacturing Symposium, a two-day, in-depth event that will focus on the technology and processes of continuous biomanufacturing and the challenges of making novel cell and regenerative tissue therapies that are approaching the clinic The symposium, which was over-subscribed last year, is set for March 27–28, 2017.
Organized by WPI life sciences and bioengineering faculty members and the university’s Biomanufacturing Education and Training Center (BETC), the symposium will bring together industry professionals and academic researchers working with new technologies, processes, and business practices that will have a significant impact on biomanufacturing in the near term.
“2017 is shaping up to be an important year for biological products, with increasing public awareness of the industry and advances across the biomanufacturing spectrum that will demand our attention,” said Kamal Rashid, PhD, director of the BETC and research professor at WPI. “Evolving platforms and expression systems, progress towards end-to-end continuous biomanufacturing, the challenges of cell and tissue therapies—all of these topics will be explored in detail at our symposium.”
This year’s keynote presenters include Manon Cox, PhD, president and chief executive officer of Protein Sciences Corp.; Jerome Ritz, MD, professor at Harvard Medical School and executive director of the Connell and O'Reilly Cell Manipulation and Gene Transfer Laboratory at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; and Gail Naughton, PhD, chief executive officer of Histogen Inc.
Of note, Kelvin Lee, PhD, Gore Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware, who led the team that organized the recently funded National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL), will also speak at the symposium. WPI is a member of NIIMBL.
The symposium will feature session talks by subject matter experts from Biogen, Eppendorf, GE Healthcare, MilliporeSigma, Organovo, Pall Life Sciences, Sartorius Stedim Biotech, and Unum Therapeutics, as well as faculty members from Tufts University and WPI. “The talks will be presented in a single-track so participants will have access to all the content, and not have to choose between concurrent sessions,” Rashid said. “This worked very well last year. It helps maximize interaction and information exchange.” (Click here for photos from last year’s symposium. )
The symposium will take place in the Rubin Campus Center on WPI’s campus in Worcester, Mass. Registration is required and space is limited. (Click here for more event information and registration.)
Funded in part by a grant from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, the BETC is a multi-faceted resource for the biologics industry, providing a range of hands-on customized programs. The BETC works with biomanufacturers to help them train, and retrain, their employees at a state-of-the-art center removed from their own production facilities. The center also provides research collaboration opportunities and consulting services to help companies manage challenges, explore new technologies, or scale up new processes.
