SPICA 2016

Giorgio Carta is the Lawrence R. Quarles professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia. He has authored over 140 refereed journal articles in the area of protein chromatography and biochemical engineering, is a co-author of the book “Protein Chromatography – Process Development and Scale-Up” published by Wiley-VCH in 2010, and a co-author of Section 16 Adsorption and Ion Exchange of Perry's Chemical Engineers' Handbook, 7th and 8th Editions. He has served on the Organizing Committee of PREP International Symposium, Exhibit & Workshop on Preparative Chromatography annually since 1997 and continues to serve as Chair annually since 2009.

Attila Felinger is a Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Pécs (Hungary), in addition to serving as President of the Hungarian Society for Separation Sciences. He graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Veszprém (Hungary) and obtained his PhD in analytical chemistry in 1988 from the same university; he also holds a DSc degree from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His research interests focus on the fundamentals of chromatography including nonlinear, preparative, and analytical separations, as well as the chemometric analysis of measurements by analytical chromatography. Prof. Felinger has published more than 130 scientific papers and two books. He serves on the Editorial Board of Journal of Chromatography A, Chromatographia, and LC-GC Europe. In 2013 and also in 2015 he was named as one of the 100 most influential analytical scientists in the world (The Analytical Scientist Power List).

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Chartered Chemist with 25 years of experience specialising in the biotechnology industry, 17 years as Research and Development Director in industrial processing and 10 active patents.
• Innovative designs for new processes, trouble shooting, reducing costs and improving industrial production;
• Optimisation of the capture, separation and purification of biopharmaceuticals;
• Extensive international experience of delivering courses and lectures;
• Track record of winning key funding for innovation projects, including four SMART and SPUR awards;
• Patent reviewing and writing;
• International network within the biopharmaceutical production industry.

Commercial

• Co-founder of two successful biotechnology supplier companies: Vivascience sold to Sartorius and Euroflow sold to Pall.
• A founder director in 1994 of Euroflow, a company designing and manufacturing chromatography columns at the 200 mm to 2 metre diameter scale. The company was launched on funds from a SMART Award for Innovation based on Martin Hofmann’s patent for a novel surface chemistry which covalently converted normal phase silica to reverse phase at 100th of the cost.
Euroflow thrived on a 2nd Martin Hofmann patent for an industrial valve which revolutionised the process of filling large scale chromatography columns such as the Chromaflow™ and Resolute™. The system has been adopted as the design of choice by the Biopharmaceutical Industry in over 500 locations worldwide. Euroflow grew to a turnover of over £3 million. After 12 years of successful trading the company was acquired by Pall in 2005 when Martin Hofmann joined them as Director R&D for Production Scale Chromatography in Portsmouth (UK).

Research and Development

• Inventor of patents for the use of ultrasound to monitor media compression and the detection of monoclonal antibody (MAb) in production scale columns.
Refs: Hofmann M. J., J.Chromatogr.A 989(2003) 79-84, Use of ultrasound to monitor the packing of largescale columns, media compression and the passage of molecules, such as monoclonal antibodies, through the column bed during chromatography., Elsevier
Chromatography methods and chromatography apparatus, US7279094 (B2) - 2007-10-09
• Co-inventor on the patent that changed the preferred way pilot and production scale chromatography columns are packed worldwide.
Refs: Hofmann M.J., J.Chromatogr A 796 (1998) 75-80, A novel technology for packing and unpacking pilot and production scale columns, Elsevier.
Access valve devices, their use in separation apparatus, and corresponding methods, US6719899 (B2) - 2004-04-13
• Inventor on patent for use of an ejector used to pack normal phase silica into production scale columns for the purification of an antibiotic.
• Inventor of a device to capture monoclonal antibodies using hollow fibres with bound Protein A.
• Designed a pregnancy test, which won Vivascience a SMART award for innovation.
• 3 years research sponsored by Merck using chromatography for protein binding studies and enzyme kinetics for PhD in chemistry at Birmingham University (Edgbaston). Patent granted for use of alginate in controlled drug release (tetracycline) and a quantitative analysis device for proteases. Environmental

• Initiated and project managed the design, manufacture and commissioning of one of the largest chromatography columns in Europe - 2 metre diameter, 3000 litre - for the capture of a thiocyanate waste product at Courtaulds, Grimsby, UK. This eliminated monthly fines, reduced reagent costs and ended the environmental impact on the Humber River.

• Project managed, designed and commissioned method and apparatus for the capture of nuclear waste at Dounreay, involving elutriation to pack chromatography vessels with a hexacyanoferrate for collecting Caesium 134/137 from contaminated pools.
Environmental

• Initiated and project managed the design, manufacture and commissioning of one of the largest chromatography columns in Europe - 2 metre diameter, 3000 litre - for the capture of a thiocyanate waste product at Courtaulds, Grimsby, UK. This eliminated monthly fines, reduced reagent costs and ended the environmental impact on the Humber River.
• Project managed, designed and commissioned method and apparatus for the capture of nuclear waste at Dounreay, involving elutriation to pack chromatography vessels with a hexacyanoferrate for collecting Caesium 134/137 from contaminated pools.

Oliver Kaltenbrunner has a PhD from the University of Bodenkultur in Vienna, Austria. He is currently a Scientific Director at Amgen Inc., California, US, responsible for coordinating all new technology development in downstream processing. He is also responsible for leading drug substance process development teams for new therapeutic biologics. In his various roles, he has worked on all aspects of the development and commercialization of therapeutic biologics, including:
• purification development for clinical production
• purification process optimization for commercial production
• process transfer & validation support
• on the floor clinical and commercial process support
• optimization of process economics and cost modeling
• clinical and commercial filing support

Georg Klima is Executive Director of Process Science in the Biopharmaceuticals Business Unit at Boehringer Ingelheim RCV in Vienna, Austria. His current responsibilities include host engineering, upstream, downstream, analytical and technology development. Prior to this he served in various roles in Quality, Validation and Regulatory Affairs. During his 17 years in the industry Georg contributed to the development and registration of more than 10 biopharmaceuticals. Georg graduated in biotechnology at the University of Applied Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria.

Shuichi Yamamoto
Professor of Chemical Engineering
Bio-Process Engineering Laboratory
School of Engineering & Graduate School of Medicine
Director, Biomedical Engineering Center(YUBEC)
Yamaguchi University, Ube, 755-8611, Japan
Birth date: July 31, 1953 Male

He received a BS degree in 1976, a MS in 1978 and a Ph. D in 1981 in the department of Food Science and technology at Kyoto University. He has been at Yamaguchi University since 1981 (Assistant Professor 1981-1988, Associate Professor 1989-1997, Professor 1998-present). He teaches basic chemical engineering, biochemical engineering, separation engineering, transport phenomena, computer calculations for chemical engineering and process design.

His research interests are in the field of biochemical engineering, food engineering and mass transfer.
He received
- a 2004 research excellence award from the Society of Chemical Engineers Japan on “Engineering analysis of chromatography of proteins” and
- a 2005 research excellence award from Japan Society for Food Engineering on “Drying of liquid foods and inactivation of enzymes during drying”.
The following paper has been recognized in the "Top-75 most cited articles" as published in the IChemE journals 2006 – 2009. Shuichi Yamamoto and Ayako Kita, Rational design calculation method for stepwise elution chromatography of proteins, Trans.IChemE.Part C., Food and Bioproducts Processsing, Vol.84, C1, 72-77,2006

He has published more than 100 scientific papers. Among them, his monograph published in 1988 by Marcel Dekker "Ion-Exchange Chromatography of Proteins" is well-known. His chromatography model better known as "Yamamoto Model" and “Yamamoto number” has been employed by various biotech companies as well as by academic researchers. It is partly explained in Perry's Chemical Engineering Handbook (pp.16-44, 16-45). A text book “Bioseparations Science and Engineering” by R.G.Harris et al. (Oxford press, 2003) describes in detail how to use his model with a Yamamoto number. His diffusion-based drying model is also called “Yamamoto model” as well, and has been used by many researchers.

He is a sub project leader of the National research project (Manufacturing Technology Association of Biologics).

He has also published several text books (chapters) for drying, mass transfer and adsorptions. He has been organizing a course “Basic Chemical Engineering“, for those who are working at chemical industries.

Currently he is Vice President of Asian Pacific Confederation of Chemical Engineers (APCChE) and a board member of World Chemical Engineering Council (WCEC) as a representative of the Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan (SCEJ).

He also serves as an editorial board member for the following journals; Separation Science and Technology, Preparative Biochemistry and Biotechnology, BioProcess International, Japan Journal of Food Engineering (Chief Editor).

For his university, he serves as the vice director of the university library and the director of Biomedical Engineering Center (YUBEC).

Dorota Antos received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Technical University of Wroclaw, Poland, in 1998. The Ph.D. thesis was awarded by Polish Minister of Education.

She conducted research at Politecnico di Milano, Italy in 1997, at Max-Planck-Institute in Magdeburg, Germany in 1999-2001 and in the frame of Fulbright Grant, at University of Virginia in 2006.

She habilitated in the field of chromatography and adsorption at Otto-von-Guericke Universitaet in Magdeburg, Germany in 2003. In 2012 she was nominated as a full professor.

Since 2014 she is a chair of Department of Chemical Engineering and Processing, Faculty of Chemistry, of Rzeszow University of Technology, Rzeszow. Since 2016 she is a dean of Faculty of Chemistry.

Torgny Fornstedt obtained his M.Sc. in Pharmacy at Uppsala University 1986, obtained his PhD in Analytical Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Uppsala University 1992 and was promoted to professor in Analytical Biotechnology at Uppsala University 2008. Since 2010 he is professor in Analytical Chemistry at Karlstad University, Sweden. Torgny Fornstedt has published almost 100 articles in highly ranked journals and presented over 50 referee-judged lectures at international conferences. Torgny Fornstedt heads the Fundamental Separation Science Group (www.separationscience.se) that cooperates with leading academic groups in Europe and USA and with leading companies. The goal of the group is to conduct theoretically advanced fundamental research in the field of separation science and to cooperate with industry regarding purification of drug molecules and high-value chemicals. The group is currently working with liquid chromatography (HPLC/UHPLC), Supercritical Fluid Chromatography (SFC) and biosensors (SPR/QCM).

Scientist focused on bioprocess design. Interested in entrepreneurship, business development & intelligence, innovation, causality, and leadership. Passionate about the application of the scientific method as a systematic way to sift out misconceptions in the status quo thinking patterns. Day-in-day-out striving to unlock people's potential.

By training I am a bio-process engineer with experience in bioprocess design, protein refolding, biomolecules purification and characterization, and process modeling. I have a particular interest in research and development of downstream process platforms for biomolecule purification, dynamic modeling of chromatography, high throughput experimentation (HTE) technologies and economic evaluation of projects.

2007 - 2012: Studies in Biological and Environmental Engineering, University of Kaiserslautern
2012: Diploma thesis " Temperature dependence on adsorption of PEGylated lysozyme on a hydrophobic resin"
since 2013: PhD student, Laboratory of Engineering Thermodynamics (LTD), University of Kaiserslautern

Rainer Hahn received a PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU Vienna, Austria). Currently he is Associate Professor for Bioprocess Engineering at the Department of Biotechnology at BOKU. His general field of research is processing of biomolecules from fermentation broths and covers a full range of unit operations like centrifugation, homogenization, filtration, ultrafiltration and chromatographic techniques. Research activities are focused on preparative separations as well as mechanistic modelling and engineering aspects. He conducted several benchmark studies comparing commercial chromatography media, e.g. HIC, hydroxyapatite and Protein A affinity sorbents. Rainer Hahn is also key researcher in the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (ACIB), a competence centre of several academic institutions and major international pharmaceutical companies. Rainer Hahn and his group are integral members of the BioIndustrial Pilot Plant at the Department of Biotechnology. This plant represents a research and training center for bioprocessing at laboratory and pilot scale. He has more than 60 peer-reviewed papers and 9 patents in the area of bioprocessing engineering and chromatography.

Until 2014: B.Sc. & M.Sc. in molecular biotechnology
2012-2015: PhD in bioengineering at Prof. Hubbuch’s group at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany:
• High-throughput and model-based process development of chromatographic and membrane processes

since 01/2016: Co-founder/-CEO of the start-up company GoSilico:
• developing and driving of chromatography modeling technology towards industrial applicability
• technology supplier (software ChromX) and technology consulting

Yoshiaki Kawajiri is an Associate Professor and Thomas Malone Faculty Fellow in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, and the Director of the Specialty Separation Center at Georgia Institute of Technology. He obtained his Master and Bachelor of Engineering degrees in chemical engineering from Kansai University in Osaka, Japan in 1997 and 1999, respectively. After working as an R&D engineer at Organo Corporation in Saitama, he completed his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S. in 2007. Then he carried out his postdoctoral study at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg, Germany. His research interests include modeling, optimization, and design of chromatography processes.

Education
• Feb. 1997. Bachelor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Inha University, Republic of Korea
• Feb. 1999. Master, Department of Chemical Engineering, Inha University, Republic of Korea
• Aug. 2007. Ph.D., Department of Chemical Engineering, Inha University, Republic of Korea

Dissertation
• “Study of retention behaviors in gradient elution and SMB process”, Inha University, Aug. 2007. Advisor: Prof. Kyung Ho Row

Job History
• Dec. 2009– Present Postdoctoral associate, Max-Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems, Sandtorstr. 1, 39106 Magdeburg, Germany Advisor: Prof. Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern
• Sept. 2007– Nov. 2009 Postdoctoral associate, School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, U.S.A. Advisor: Prof. Phillip C. Wankat

Nico Lingg is a postdoctoral fellow in the working group of Alois Jungbauer at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna. He graduated with a doctoral degree at BOKU in 2014, with a thesis was focused on monoclonal antibody charge variant separation and was jointly performed at BOKU and the Bioprocessing Technology Institute in Singapore. His current research focuses on Protein separation, purification and downstream processing.

Gabriele Lodi graduated magna cum laude in Chemical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano in 2013, with a MSc thesis on carbon dioxide removal from syngas by means of different cryogenic processes.

In 2013 he won a PhD scholarship in Industrial Chemistry and Chemical Engineering sponsored by Biochemtex, a company of the Mossi & Ghisolfi Group. His research activity deals with the identification of process solutions for low cost purification of ligno-cellulosic derived sugar streams, aimed at the production of green chemical commodities. In particular, he studies the possible applications of continuous chromatographic processes to the separations involved in 2nd generation biorefinery.

From February to July 2016, he spent six months at the ETH Zurich in the Morbidelli Group, focusing both on fundamental description of phenomena involved in bioseparations as well as on continuous chromatographic processes. In that occasion, he won the “Zeno Karl Schindler Foundation Doctoral Exchange Grant” for PhD students moving in Swiss universities.

Research and development in separation processes (lab and pilot scale)

Centrifugal Partition Chromatography : column design, development, engineering and new applications

Algorefinery : fractionation of micro-algae biomass, metabolites extraction

Intensification of extraction and reaction processes

Active partnerships :
* Université de Reims, ICMR, Pr Jean-Hugues Renault (Isolation and structure of natural substances)
* Université de Toulouse, LGC, Pr Christophe Gourdon (Extraction and reaction eng.)
* Rousselet Centrifugation SA (Kromaton CPC columns)
* Armen Instruments (CPC columns)
* UCB Biopharma (Biomolecules purification)
* Pierre Fabre Médicaments (Biomolecules purification)
* AlgoSource Technology (Microalgae refinery)

Research programs :
ANR Algoraffinerie (2011-2013)
ANR Diesalg (2012-2014)
ANR xPC (2012-2016), coordinator

Mass transfer characterization, Liquid-liquid separation processes

I am presently Emeritus Research Director at CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) in the Department of Physics and Mechanics of Heterogenous Media (PMMH) at ESPCI-Paris.
I got my PhD degree in 1975 under the supervision of Prof. Georges Guiochon at Ecole Polytechnique (Paris) on optimization of HPLC and its application to the separation of heavy oil fractions. I spent two years as post-doc in the group of Prof. J. Calvin Giddings working on field-flow fractionation (FFF).
Presently, my research interests are focused on the fundamental aspects of separation science, with emphasis on field-flow fractionation, hydrodynamic instabilities in separation methods, Taylor dispersion analysis, capillary electrophoresis, and liquid chromatography.

Alexander Matlschweiger is a PhD student in the working group of Rainer Hahn at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU) in Vienna. She graduated with a degree in biotechnology at BOKU in 2014. He achieved his master’s degree at BOKU in 2012 in the field of biotechnology. Since 2012 he is working on his PhD thesis dealing with the purification of secretory antibodies from animal whey. The work is focused on the development of a fast and straight-forward purification process of the antibodies to be easily applicable in the industry.

Fabian Mestmäcker was born in 1992. He studied process engineering at Technical University of Clausthal. He finished his studies with the academical degree of Bachelor of Science in 2014 and Master of Science in 2016. At the moment, he is a scientific assistant at the institute for separation and process technology at the Technical University of Clausthal. His field of research for his PhD studies under Prof. Strube are adsorptive processes, especially continuous chromatography.

2004 Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, with Prof. Alirio Rodrigues, University of Porto, Portugal
2005 Postdoctoral fellow, University of Porto, Portugal
2006-2007 NATO Research Fellow, Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy, University "Ss. Ciryl & Methodius" Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
2007-2014 Leader of Chromatography Group, Chair of Separation Science & Technology (Prof. Wolfgang Arlt), University Erlangen – Nuremberg
2013 Habilitation with Prof. Wolfgang Arlt
since July 2014 Assistant professor, Technical University Munich

Research interests:
Preparative chromatography (batch and continuous, small and bio- molecules) Integrated processes (reactive separation processes, SMBR) Modeling, simulation and optimization Chemical Thermodynamics (phase equilibria)

Current research focus:
Liquid-liquid chromatography (batch and continuous) A priori prediction of partition equilibrium in biphasic liquid systems

Ms. Raena Morley received her bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rhode Island, USA. She then completed a master’s degree in Advanced Materials and Processes at the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. In December 2015, she began working as a PhD candidate in Prof. Mirjana Minceva’s Biothermodynamics group at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. Her current research focus is on model-based design approaches for preparative liquid-liquid chromatography processes.

Dipl.-Ing. Kathleen Müller
PhD student at the Institute of Separation Science and Technology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

01/2012 – 12/2016 PhD student, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Institute of Separation Science and Technology, Research group: Integrated Separation Processes (Head of group: Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Malte Kaspereit)
12/2009 – 12/2011 Research Assistant, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Institute for Physical Chemistry
10/2004 – 11/2009 Studies, Molecular and Structural Product Design, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg

1983 Diploma thesis in chemical Thermodynamics (TH Merseburg)
1986 Ph.D. in Liquid-Liquid Equilibria Thermodynamics (TH Merseburg)
1986-1989 Head of the analytical group at the department for insulin and peptide purification at the comp. Berlin-Chemie
1990-2001 Development of resins and membranes for Bioseparation at the research department of comp. Merck KGaA (Darmstadt)
2003 Habilitation in the area of bioseparation entitled „Polymer Surface Modifications - a Method for the Preparation of Resins for Biochromatography“
2001 until today Technical Director, Separation Techniques comp. TOSOH Bioscience GmbH (Stuttgart and Griesheim)

Additional activities:
Lecturer at the University of Darmstadt for "Industrial Biotechnology" and at the University of Karlsruhe for “Analytical Bioseparation”

Franziska Ortner obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Bioprocess Engineering at Technical University of Munich in 2014. During several internships, amongst others at Novartis in Basel (Switzerland) and MIT in Boston (Myerson group, USA), she gathered experimental and theoretical experience in the development of separation processes (chromatography, crystallization) for small and biomolecules. She has completed her Master thesis in Prof. Mazzotti’s group at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) and has been working as a PhD student in the same group since 2014. Her current research is focused on the theoretical and experimental description of special phenomena in liquid chromatography (liquid-liquid phase split, two-phase flow), as well as on the development of continuous chromatographic processes for the separation of small molecules.

Cristina Peixoto graduated in Applied Chemistry (Branch Biotechnology) New University of Lisbon and holds a PhD in Engineering Sciences from Instituto de Tecnologia Quimica Biológica (ITQB) from New University of Lisbon.

She is invited lecturer since 2010 in several PhD programs. The main research activities are related with the development and optimization of downstream process of different products with applications as therapeutics or vaccines associated with several biological systems. She published over 50 manuscripts in refereed international journals.

Since 2009, Cristina Peixoto is responsible of the downstream process development laboratory at Animal Cell Technology Unit at IBET (Instituto de Biologia Experimental e Tecnológica) and also Project Manager in research contract projects with Industrial partners.

Dr. António Ribeiro has a PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering obtained in University of Porto. Is now teaching Chemical Engineering in the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança and is doing its investigation as an integrated member of the LSRE (Laboratory of Separation and Reaction Engineering) inside the team of Cyclic Adsorption/Reaction Processes.

01/2015 - now PhD student at the Institute of Engineering in Life Sciences, Section IV: Biomolecular Separation Engineering, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
01/2014 - 10/2014 Scientist in Tech. Dev. in Downstream-Processing at Lek Pharmaceuticals d.d. (Sandoz), Slovenia
04/2013 - 12/2013 Internship on Model-based Chromatography Development in the Biologics Downstream-Processing Group, Novartis Pharma, Switzerland
03/2012 - 09/2012 Master thesis titled Studies on Multilayer Micropost Arrays in the Microsystems Group at Stanford University, California, USA
09/2011 - 02/2013 Master studies in biotechnology at the ETH Zürich, Switzerland
09/2010 - 08/2011 Bachelor studies in biotechnology at ETH Zürich, Switzerland
09/2008 - 08/2010 Basic studies in chemistry at ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Scientific Career
2016 - Present: Scientific Assistant (Institutes of Separation Science & Technology - Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg)

Education
B.Sc/M.Sc 2009-2015: Life Science Engineering (Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg)
Master Thesis 05/2014 - 11/2014: Study of an Industrial Process for the Production of a Biosurfactant ( Depatment for Physical Process Technology - Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineerin and Biotechnology)

Practical Experience
Internship 11/2013 - 04/2014: Bioproduct Purification (Department for Bioprocess Technology & Life Cycle Management Evonik Industries, Hanau)

Stay Abroad
Student Exchange 09/2005 - 07/2006: AFS Intercultural Programs (Caracas, Venezuela)

Susanne Schweiger is a PhD student in the working group of Alois Jungbauer at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna. She graduated with a degree in biotechnology at BOKU in 2014. For her Master’s thesis she worked at Boehringer Ingelheim Vienna focussing on high pressure refolding of proteins. Her current research interests lie in the field of chromatography modelling where she is working on scale-up, packing quality and extra column effects.

Ricardo Silva received his PhD degree in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from New University of Lisbon in 2013. His studies focused on the development and optimization of countercurrent adsorption processes for purification of (bio)pharmaceutical products. Since 2014 he is a postdoc at Animal Cell Technology Unit in iBET, pursuing the development of new purification strategies for vaccines, gene therapy vectors and cell based products.

Fabian Steinebach obtained his MSc in Chemical and Bioengineering from ETH Zurich with a master's thesis on MCSGP design. He is currently pursuing his PhD under Prof. Morbidelli with a focus on the design and control of continuous downstream processes for the integrated production of monoclonal antibodies.

Nicole Ulmer obtained her M.Sc. in Chemical and Bioengineering from ETH Zurich. In 2011, she joined ChromaCon Ltd. to work on the development of continuous chromatography processes. Nicole is currently perusing her Ph.D. at the Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering under the supervision of Prof. Morbidelli (since 2015). Her main research activities include the modification and purification of proteins for therapeutic uses.

Gang Wang is currently PhD student at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). He earned his Ba-chelor of Science from KIT in 2012. During his internship at Roche Diagnostics in Penzberg in 2013, he focused in particular on development and chromatographic purification of recombinant mono-clonal antibodies. In 2014, he finished the Master of Science in Bio-engineering from KIT with his Master‘s thesis about the application of Optimum Experimental Design in protein chromatography modeling for model parameter estimation with increased reliability.