BIOMILLENIA announces new scientific advisory board

Paris, France, August 15, 2016—BIOMILLENIA, an innovator in microbe strain development for the manufacturing of strains, natural ingredients and enzymes is delighted to announce the formation of its new scientific advisory board. The world-class team, consisting of leading experts from Europe and the U.S. who have made significant contributions in biotechnology, biological engineering, enzyme technology and microfluidics, will be chaired by Prof. Dr. Dr. Detlev Riesner. “We are honored to have the support of such an elite team of extremely respected experts with global scientific and technology expertise and extensive commercial experience,” said Dirk Löffert, CEO of BIOMILLENIA. “The new board will support and guide BIOMILLENIA in its technology, scientific and development efforts toward the creation of the company’s first products.”

The BIOMILLENIA scientific advisory board members are:

Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. Detlev H. Riesner (Chairman)

Detlev Riesner was a Professor in Biophysics and is co-founder of QIAGEN N.V. He was a member of the QIAGEN supervisory board and Chairman of this board from 1999 to 2014. He was also a member of the supervisory boards of NewLab Bioquality AG, Direvo AG and Alantos AG. and is currently a member of the supervisory board of ACImmune S.A. and of the advisory board of evoXX GmbH. Prof. Riesner has also served as a member of the scientific advisory boards of the Friedrich Löffler-Institute, Isle of Riems, PrioNet and APRI. Furthermore, he received the Max Planck Research Award for International Cooperation and the German Federal Cross of Merit, first class from the Federal President of Germany. During his academic career, Prof. Riesner held the Chair of Biophysics at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany from 1980 until his retirement in 2006. He also held the positions of Dean of the Science Faculty and Vice President of Research. In 2007, he became a member of the university’s board of trustees. Prior to that, he was Professor of Biophysical Chemistry at the Darmstadt Institute of Technology and, from 1975 to 1977, Lecturer of Biophysical Chemistry at Hanover Medical School. Prof. Riesner has also held guest professorships at the Institute of Microbiology, Academia Sinica, Beijing, and at the department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. He received his M.S. in Physics from Hanover Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. from the University of Brunswick, with post-graduate work at Princeton University, NJ.

Christopher A. Voigt, Ph.D.

Christopher Voigt is a world-leading expert in synthetic biology and genetic engineering. He is currently a professor at the Department of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is the Chair and a member of the steering committee of the MIT-Broad foundry. Prof. Voigt obtained his Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and biophysics at the California Institute of Technology. He continued his postdoctoral research in bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. His academic career commenced as an Assistant and Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California-San Francisco. Chris Voigt joined the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT in 2011. He has published more than 60 scientific publications and is editor-in-chief of ACS Synthetic Biology. Prof. Voigt has received numerous honors and awards and serves on many scientific advisory boards in industry and academia.

Poul Børge Poulsen, M.Sc., BBA

Poul B. Poulsen is a former employee and member of the board of directors at Novo Industri (now the two companies Novo Nordisk and Novozymes), Bagsvaerd, Denmark – with Novozymes being the largest global company in the industrial enzymes market. Poul B. Poulsen has held positions as Director in research and development, marketing and cross-functional fields. He was a member of the founding assembly of the European Federation of Biotechnology in 1978, was founder and chairman (1980-84) of the European Section of Applied Biocatalysis and was appointed as an honorary member in 2010. He is a consultant to the Danish National Innovation Foundation. Poul B. Poulsen received his M.Sc.biochem.eng at the Technical University of Denmark and a B.Business Administration at Copenhagen Business University.

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Manfred T. Reetz

Manfred T. Reetz is currently emeritus group leader of the Max Planck-Institute for Coal Research (MPI) and simultaneously Hans Meerwein Research Professor at the University of Marburg, Germany. Previously, he was director at the MPI for two decades and, prior to that, he served as Chair for Synthetic Organic Chemistry in Marburg. Reetz obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in the U.S. in 1965 and 1967, respectively, and also a doctoral degree in organic chemistry under the guidance of U. Schöllkopf at Göttingen University in 1969. Over the last two decades, his group has helped to shape the emerging field of directed evolution, specifically in the quest to evolve stereo- and regioselective enzymes as catalysts in organic chemistry and biotechnology. The primary focus has been on lipases, epoxide hydrolases, Baeyer-Villiger monooxygenases and P450 monoxygenases, focusing on reactions that are difficult if not impossible using state-of-the-art chiral transition metal catalysts or organocatalysts. He has received numerous prestigious international honors and awards and is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and a Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

David Weitz, Ph.D.

David Weitz is a Professor of Physics and Applied Physics with appointments in the Department of Physics and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University in 1978. He worked at Exxon Research and Engineering Company for nearly 18 years, and moved to the University of Pennsylvania as a Professor of Physics in 1995. After that he moved to Harvard at the end of the last millennium, where he currently leads a group investigating soft matter physics, biophysics and biotechnology. His recent work includes extensive development of drop-based microfluidics and their applications in very high-throughput screening technology for a variety of biotech and medical applications, as well as for the fabrication of innovative structures that can be used for encapsulation of active ingredients. He has published over 630 papers and has filed more than 70 patents. Prof. Weitz has co-founded 10 companies in the fields of materials production using microfluidic techniques and various biotech applications of drop-based microfluidics. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in the US.

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