9843342 WANG This award renews funding for the Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Biotechnology Process Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The award funds the second five years of effort under a new cooperative agreement, with a total duration of eleven years. The vision of the Biotechnology Process Engineering Center (BPEC) is to promote and enhance U.S. biotechnology research. Over the past year, BPEC has shifted its primary research direction from therapeutic protein biotechnology, an area in which BPEC has made significant advances and for which it has built up a strong industrial partnership, to therapeutic gene biotechnology, a nascent area of research. This new area will focus on the delivery of genes, as opposed to gene discovery or production, which many believe is the crucial bottleneck in gene therapy. Currently, the expression of therapeutic genes delivered to cells within a living system is either too short in duration, not repeatable, not selective or not properly regulated. By combining engineering with molecular cell biology and by building on its track record of developing strong teams, producing excellent cross-disciplinary students, and creating long-lasting industrial partnerships, BPEC is well positioned to make major progress in addressing these challenges in the gene biotechnology field. The goal of the therapeutic protein work is to provide the underlying science and engineering knowledge and technology required to produce and deliver therapeutic proteins of high quality in quantities large enough and within formulations stable enough to be economically viable. The new gene biotechnology research area will focus on two complimentary methods of delivery of genes to cells. The first approach is the use of retroviruses to transfect genes into stem cells ex vivo, followed by re-implantation of these cells into a patient. The second approach is the use of synthetic molecular conjugates to transfect genes into already differentiated c ells in vivo. A new Division of Bioengineering and Environmental Health is currently being created at MIT, in part because of the influence of BPEC, which greatly facilitated the break down of the traditional cultural barriers between biology and engineering. This Division will be a source of both undergraduate and graduate students for BPEC, and will offer a Biomedical Engineering Minor, a 5-year BS/MS Bioengineering Degree, a Ph.D. in Bioengineering, and a Ph.D. in Toxicology. BPEC has a strong industrial partnership in the area of protein therapeutics. This group is very enthusiastic about both the research and the students produced over the past thirteen years. Within the last 12 months, BPEC has also put together a second industrial group that focuses on gene biotechnology. This group as very active in helping BPEC develop its gene biotechnology research strategy over the past year, and is very interested in continuing to partner with BPEC in this area.
