Keynote Speakers

Mohamed Al-Rubeai, Director Mohamed Al-Rubeai is Professor of Biochemical Engineering and Director of Cell Culture Engineering Research Centre at UCD. He is Fellow of the Conway Institute of Biomolecular & Biomedical Research, and Fellow of the UK Institute of Biology (FIBiol). He is a recipient of  IChemE Donald Medal (2008). His research interests are in mammalian cell culture, production of biopharmaceuticals, tissue engineering, stem cell bioprocessing, metabolic engineering and biomaterials.
Sandro Carrara, Senior Research Scientist Sandro Carrara is Senior Scientist and Lecturer at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and Professor of nano-bio-sensing and micro/nano interfaces at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Biophysics (DIBE) of the University of Genoa. He was a Professor in biophysics at the University of Genoa and a Professor of nanobiotechnology at the University of Bologna. Sandro Carrara graduated in Electronics in Technical school of Albenga, got a Master in Physics from University of Genoa and received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics from University of Padoa. His main scientific interest is on electrical phenomena mediated by nano-structured molecular thin-films. He currently has a special focus on development of Protein and DNA based CMOS bio-chips. He has more then 90 scientific publications and 10 patents. He has Top-25 Hottest-Articles (2004, 2005, 2008, and 2009) published in highly-ranked International-Journals Biosensors and Bioelectronics, Sensors and Actuators B, and Thin Solid Films. He received the best work award at the NanoEurope Symposium in 2009 (Rapperswil), the bronze leaf prize in 2010 (Berlin), and the golden leaf prize in 2009 (Cork) at the IEEE International Conference PRIME. In 2006, he received the best referees’ award from Biosensor and Bioelectronics journal. He also won a NATO Advanced Research prize in 1996 for his original contribution to the physics of single-electron conductivity in nano-particles. From 1997 to 2000, he was a member of an international committee at the ELETTRA Synchrotron in Trieste. From 2000 to 2003, he was scientific leader of a National Research Program (PNR) in the filed of Nanobiotechnology. He is now an internationally esteemed expert of the evaluation panel of the Academy of Finland in a research program for the years 2010-2013. Sandro Carrara is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the BioNanoScience journal. He also is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems and of the IEEE Sensors Journals. He is referee of other eleven international journals. He is/was Chair in boards of several International Conferences such as IEEE-IWASI/Bari-2011, ISMICT/Montreux-2011, BioCAS/San Diego-2011, BioCAS/Cyprus-2010, BioCAS/Beijing-2009, and NanoNets/Luzern-2009
Matthew Croughan, Professor and Director of the Amgen Bioprocessing Center at KGI Matt Croughan is the George B. and Joy Rathmann Professor and Director of the Amgen Bioprocessing Center at Keck Graduate Institute (KGI). He founded the Bioprocessing focus track at KGI and has built it into one of the largest masters-level programs in bioprocessing, with a unique emphasis on recruiting and educating the next generation of business leaders in bioprocessing. As the sole full time faculty member in bioprocessing at KGI, he teaches eight graduate courses and advises 30-40 masters and two doctoral students specializing in various areas of bioprocessing. Prior to joining KGI, and still one day per week, Dr. Croughan works as an independent consultant providing expert guidance on biopharmaceutical process development and manufacturing to over fifty firms. Previously Dr. Croughan was the chief scientist for Genentech’s cell culture facility in Vacaville, CA, built for the production of therapeutic antibodies. Earlier in his career at Genentech, he developed the first high-density, fed-batch cell culture process, a breakthrough platform technology now used throughout the biopharmaceutical industry. Matt has a Ph.D. from MIT and a BS from UC Berkeley, both in chemical engineering.