The Editors of the Biochemical Engineering Journal, in cooperation with the Biochemical Engineering Conferences Steering Committee, are very pleased to announce the selection of Kelvin H. Lee as the recipient of the first Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award.  This biennial award recognizes outstanding excellence in research and practice contributed to the field of biochemical engineering by a young community member.   

Kelvin H. Lee is Gore Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware and is Director of the Delaware Biotechnology Institute. 

Professor Lee received a BSE in Chemical Engineering from Princeton and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Caltech. He spent several years in the Biotechnology Institute at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland and also completed a postdoc in Caltech's Biology Division. Prior to his current appointment, he was on the faculty at Cornell University where he held the titles of: Samuel C. and Nancy M. Fleming Chair Professor, Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Director of the Cornell Institute for Biotechnology and Director of the New York State Center for Life Science Enterprise.

Kelvin H. Lee

In terms of his contributions, Professor Lee has been recognized in a number of ways, including the DuPont Young Professor award, the NSF CAREER award, Cornell's Barger '50 Engineering College Excellence in Teaching award, Cornell’s Menschel Award for Distinguished Scholarship, and the Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Award. He has also been recognized by Technology Review as a Top Innovator in Business and Technology, by the journal Metabolic Engineering with the Jay Bailey Best Paper award, and by the designation of Distinguished Professor by the New York State Office of Science, Technology, and Academic Research.  

Professor Lee also serves as an advisor to a number of small and large biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. His research interests include: the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, the production of protein-based therapeutics and the development of technologies for protein analysis. 

Professor Lee will discuss his current research findings in a presentation entitled “Enhanced Secretion via Translation Rate Engineering” at the Biochemical Engineering XVI Conference which commences on July 5th, 2009 in Burlington, Vermont, USA.