For this premier international conference, which is the sixteenth edition in the series, the Principal Investigators will bring together established researchers, young investigators, private sector scientists and engineers, and graduate students to assess the present and chart the future of the ever-changing field of biochemical engineering. The last Biochemical Engineering conference (XV: Quebec City, Canada, July 15-19, 2007) was attended by 252 participants from 24 countries, with 58% academia, 34% industrial, and 8% other (institutes, etc). With plenary presentations, oral sessions, and poster sessions, BioChE XVI will explore a number of emerging and established subjects with a small conference atmosphere that enables high-level discussion and participation.
Broader Impacts
Biochemical Engineering XVI will provide comprehensive coverage of present challenges and future directions in biochemical engineering. The choice of topics across the biotechnology field - molecular design and display, the cell-materials interface, biofuels and bioenergy, vaccines, nanotechnology, metabolic engineering, continuous bioprocessing, and quantitative analysis and engineering of biochemical networks, and stem cell bioengineering in combination with core areas of biochemical engineering (downstream processing, protein stability and engineering, process development, and cell culture) will have a profound impact on the direction of biotechnology over the next ten years.
The PIs have also made a significant effort to invite and recruit speakers and session chairs from groups underrepresented in science and engineering. Eleven of the fifteen oral sessions include at least one female speaker from academia or industry. NSF funds provided for the meeting will support female and underrepresented minority speakers and students from US academic institutions.
