The Practice of a Biochemical Engineer: What Is Out There?
The ever-changing landscape of technical opportunities and challenges in the biotechnology field is appealing to inquisitive and entrepreneurial minds. The role of a biochemical engineer in providing the tools to solve medical needs has become a powerful weapon to fight diseases by means that were never before possible. In this context, my personal experience has been extremely rewarding having contributed to the development and manufacturing or several drugs to fight cancer and infectious diseases. The formative years at UMBC, and earlier on at the Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso (UCV), raised the awareness of the many possibilities this particular field of engineering could bring to help solve unmet needs in healthcare. From the technological point of view, biotechnology, as we know it today, has grown from traditional fermentation to production of therapeutics. Although the principles can be adapted, the technical difficulties encountered when producing complex proteins at high y
