Andrew Zydney to receive Alan S. Michaels Award
11/27/2018
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Andrew Zydney, Bayard D. Kunkle Chair and professor of chemical engineering, has been named the recipient of the 2019 Alan S. Michaels Award in the Recovery of Biological Products. The award, bestowed by the Division of Biochemical Technology of the American Chemical Society (ACS), recognizes outstanding research and practice in the recovery of biological products.
Recovery of biological products is the process of purifying vaccines and other biopharmaceuticals as part of downstream bioprocessing. Biologically derived drugs are made from genetically engineered mammalian cells and are designed to produce complex biomolecules that attack diseases in various ways. Because they are injected and must bypass the body’s natural defense mechanisms, they need to be highly purified.
“There’s as many as a dozen steps that are needed to be carried out to eventually get the drug into a form where it can be put in a vial and given to a doctor so it can be injected,” Zydney said.
Zydney, whose research focuses on membrane science and technology, is being recognized for his lifetime contributions to the field. His work has had a major impact on the design and development of important commercial membrane processes for the purification of monoclonal antibodies, which are used in treating cancer and other immunologic disorders.
Zydney has published more than 200 articles on membranes and bioprocessing. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Membrane Science, a member of the editorial review board for Biotechnology and Bioengineering and serves on the editorial boards for Separation and Purification Reviews, Separation Science and Technology and Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Zydney will receive the Alan S. Michaels Award at the ACS Meeting in Orlando, FL, March 31-April 4, 2019. Alan Michaels, for whom the award is named, was a pioneer in the recovery of biological products and membrane fields. He was also was one of Zydney’s mentors during the early years of his career.
“Anytime you receive an award named after someone, you probably know the person it was named for from the literature and by their professional reputation,” Zydney said. “But I knew Alan Michaels personally, dating back to my time as a graduate student at MIT. He was definitely a valued mentor and supporter as I was getting started as a young faculty member, so it’s doubly special to get an award that is named after Alan Michaels.”
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