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The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering

Hougen Symposium 2012

Olaf Andreas HougenOLAF ANDREAS
HOUGEN (1893–1986)
former Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was one of the outstanding original contributors to the science and practice of modern chemical engineering. He is remembered for his inspired teaching, his leadership in engineering education and research, and his volunteer work in retirement for the university and the profession. It is in his honor that this symposium is named.

In his research activities, Professor Hougen developed important original and fundamental principles for the mainstream of modern chemical engineering: heat transfer, gas adsorption, thermodynamics, catalysis, applied kinetics, and process design. In his teaching, Professor Hougen's warmth of personality and sincere interest in each student's future were a source of inspiration to chemical engineers around the world. He instilled in his students a sense of responsibility to their profession and to society. Professor Hougen's influence on chemical engineering education in the United States and abroad was achieved through his numerous publications, many of which established patterns for chemical engineering teaching and research. He was the author or coauthor of seven books and 156 papers.

His many honors included five awards from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Esso Award of the American Chemical Society, and the Lamme Gold Medal Award of the American Society for Engineering Education. From 1961 through 1963, he served as a scientific attaché at the American Embassy, Stockholm, Sweden, and in 1974 was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

THE OLAF A. HOUGEN SYMPOSIUM is supported by the Hougen Professorship Fund of the University of Wisconsin Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Colleagues and former students of Professor Hougen, other friends and corporations have contributed to the fund to honor one of the founders of the modern chemical engineering profession. Professor Hougen believed that leading research departments have an obligation to provide leadership to their professions through activities that strengthen the crucial link between the generation and dissemination of new knowledge. It is in this spirit that we continue this symposium series by inviting distinguished colleagues to present public lectures on a topic of current interest and importance to the profession and to society generally.

Gregory Stephanopoulos

Bayer Professor of Chemical Engineering
Department of Chemical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Metabolic Engineering: synthetic chemistry of the 21st century

Abstract
Metabolic engineering is a maturing field, just about 20 years old. During this period, it has developed new concepts, a well-defined methodology and a focused research portfolio of rich intellectual content and particular relevance to biotechnology and biological engineering. Its goal is to harness the immense potential of microorganisms for the production of useful products, in particular from renewable resources. This it does by engineering the cellular metabolism such as to favor product-forming pathways while maintaining normal cellular functions. Having been founded on modern genetic methods and concepts of chemical reaction engineering, Metabolic Engineering is now adapting itself to rapid changes to take advantage of genome sequencing and avalanches of cell- and genome-wide-data.

In this talk I will review the foundations of metabolic engineering, its key technologies and how it has evolved in its short life span. Particular emphasis will be placed on the new and diverse types of chemistry that can be carried out with the use of microbial catalysts that are extremely challenging for synthetic chemistry. As such, metabolic engineering emerges as the enabling science for the production of chemical and pharmaceutical products in the 21st century. Examples from the production of biofuels, pharmaceuticals and materials from renewable resources will be used to illustrate the above points.

Bio
Dr. Gregory Stephanopoulos received his degrees in Chemical Engineering (B.S.: NTU Athens, M.S.: University of Florida, Ph.D.: University of Minnesota, 1978). He taught at Caltech (1978-85) after which he was appointed Professor of ChE at MIT. He served as Associate Director of the Biotechnology Process Engineering Center (1990-97) and is also the Taplin Professor of HST (2001-), Instructor of Bioengineering at Harvard Medical School (1997-), and the W. H. Dow Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at MIT.

Professor Stephanopoulos' current research focuses on metabolic engineering, the engineering of microbes for the production of fuels and chemicals. In addition, he has pioneered methods for analyzing fluxes in metabolic networks through the systematic use of stable isotopic tracers. These methods have allowed the fine dissection of metabolism and identification of target enzymes affected by various modulations, such as oncogene expression, diet changes, and other genetic modifications. As such, his lab has generated several results of importance to cancer and metabolism. He has co-authored or –edited 5 books, more than 330 papers and 50 patents and supervised more than 110 graduate and post-doctoral students. He is presently the editor-in-chief of Metabolic Engineering and Current Opinion in Biotechnology and serves on the Editorial Boards of 7 scientific journals and the Advisory Boards of 5 ChE departments. For his research and educational contributions, Prof. Stephanopoulos has been recognized with numerous awards, such as: Dreyfus award, Excellence in Teaching Award-Caltech, AIChE Technical Achievement Award, PYI from NSF, AIChE-FPBE Division Award, M.J. Johnson Award of ACS, Merck Award in Metabolic Engineering, the R.H. Wilhelm Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering of AIChE, Amgen Award in Biochemical Engineering. In 2002 he was elected to the AIChE Board of Directors, in 2003 to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and in 2005 he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree (doctor technices honoris causa) by the Technical University of Denmark. In 2007 he won the C. Thom Award from SIM and the Founders Award from AIChE and in 2010 the ACS E. V. Murphree Award in Industrial and Engineering Chemistry and the George Washington Carver Award of BIO. In 2011 he was selected as the Eni Prize winner for Renewable and non-Conventional Energy and was also elected as Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens.

Professor Stephanopoulos has taught undergraduate and graduate courses of the core of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at Caltech and MIT and co-authored the first textbook on Metabolic Engineering. He is presently directing a research group of approximately 25 researchers.

Please see Dr. Stephanopoulos' website here.

Schedule of Events

Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Lectures in room 1610 Engineering Hall

9:00-9:45 am
Gregory Stephanopoulos
MIT
Metabolic Engineering: synthetic chemistry of the 21st century

9:45-10:30 am
Huimin Zhao, UIUC
Synthetic Biology: Putting Synthesis into Biology

10:30 -11:00 am Break

11-11:45 am
James Liao,
University of California, Los Angeles
A Tale of Two Butanols: Exploring Metabolism for Fuels and Chemicals

11:45-1:30 pm Lunch
(on your own)

1:30-2:15 pm
Chaitan Khosla
Stanford
Assembly Line Biosynthesis of Polyketide Antibiotics

2:15-2:45 pm
Brian Pfleger
UW-Madison
Integrating Systems and Synthetic Biology for Engineering Chemical Production in Bacteria

2:45-3:15 pm
Jennifer Reed
UW-Madison
Tools for In silico Design of Microbial Biocatalysts

3:15-5:00 pm
Poster Session
Engineering Hall Lobby

 

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