News Release

Bioengineering professor Bernhard Palsson receives 2016 International Metabolic Engineering Award

Bernhard Palsson, Galletti Professor of Bioengineering and Professor of Pediatrics, has been named the recipient of the 2016 International Metabolic Engineering Award. Photo courtesy of the Systems Biology Research Group.

San Diego, Calif., June 8, 2016 -- Bernhard Palsson, Galletti Professor of Bioengineering and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego, has been named the recipient of the 2016 International Metabolic Engineering Award. The award, presented every two years by the International Metabolic Engineering Society (IMES), recognizes an outstanding career contributor to the field of metabolic engineering. Palsson is being honored for developing genome-scale metabolic modeling and simulation strategies for better understanding large metabolic and gene regulatory networks and for demonstrating application methods. The Metabolic Engineering Award and an associated lecture by Palsson will be presented on June 29, 2016 at the IMES-sponsored Metabolic Engineering 11 conference, which will take place June 26–30 in Awaji Island, Japan.

"His platform technology has been widely used in both industry and academia for the development of high performance microbial strains capable of producing chemicals," said Professor Sang Yup Lee, the chair of the award selection committee. "Also, his genome-scale models of human and CHO are being widely used." 

Palsson is being recognized for his pioneering work in developing genome-scale models of metabolic networks. These models have proved to have great utility in metabolic engineering and are now in widespread use in the community. 

Since 2010, Palsson led the establishment of the Center for Biosustainability, headquartered at the DTU in Denmark, but with an international footprint, solely focused on strain design and engineering. With over 250 FTEs, this Center represents the largest organized research institute in the world that is focused on metabolic engineering. This Center should help elevate the standing of the field of metabolic engineering in the scientific and industrial biotechnology community. Palsson is also the director of the CHO Systems Biology Center and the Systems Biology Research Group, both at UC San Diego.

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