We are privileged to have many prominent practitioners and researchers in the field as lecturers for the CBT short course. See below for a brief introduction to each one.
- Samira Azarin, Associate Professor and Shell Distinguished Chair in Chemical Engineering, University of Minnesota
- Wei-Shou Hu, Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota
- Seung Hwan (Allen) Lee, Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota
- Arpan Bandyopadhyay, Associate Director of Pivotal Biologics Technical Development, Gilead Sciences
- Ben Hackel, Professor, University of Minnesota
- Sofie O'Brien, Principal Scientist, Cell Line Development, Pfizer
- Zion Lee, Principal Scientist, Cell Line Development, Genentech
- Bhanu Chandra Mulukutla, Research Fellow, Bioprocess Research & Development, Pfizer
- Qi Zhang, Associate Professor, University of Minnesota
- Weichang Zhou, Chief Technology Officer, MediLink Theraputics
Samira Azarin, Ph.D. (Course Director)
Associate Professor and Shell Distinguished Chair
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
University of Minnesota
Dr. Azarin is an Associate Professor and Shell Distinguished Chair in Chemical Engineering in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. She has degrees in chemical engineering from MIT (B.S. 2006) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Ph.D. 2011), where her research focused on engineering the human pluripotent stem cell microenvironment to regulate self-renewal and differentiation. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University, where she developed biomaterial scaffolds to capture and detect metastatic breast cancer cells in vivo. Her research program at the University of Minnesota is focused on studying the function of healthy and diseased tissues in four main areas: biomaterials for in situ tumor vaccination, cellular dormancy and activation, transport across physiological barriers, and biomanufacturing of cell therapies. She is the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, the George W. Taylor Career Development Award, and the McKnight Presidential Fellow Award.
Wei-Shou Hu, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
University of Minnesota
Dr. Hu initiated this course forty years ago. Over his four decades of service, he trained more than 150 engineers and scientists, many of whom now play key roles in advancing cell bioprocess engineering. His research in cell culture technology has emphasized integrating biological insights into engineering analysis and incorporating engineering principles into designing biological systems. His team, the "Hu Group," has been at the forefront of cellular bioprocess technology advances, thriving as the field evolved from quantitative physiology to genomics, systems analysis and design, and synthetic biology. Recently, his work has included model-guided design and optimization of synthetic cell lines to produce recombinant adeno-associated viruses (rAAV). He authored textbooks Cell Bioprocess Technology and Engineering Principles of Biotechnology, and co-authored the textbook Bioseparations. He initiated the Engineering Foundation Conferences on Cell Culture Engineering four decade ago which has been among the most influential forum of cell culture processing. Dr. Hu’s current work focuses on integrating physiological insight into model-driven cell culture process design, utilizing machine learning tools to enhance innovation in the field.
Seung Hwan (Allen) Lee
Assistant Professor Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science University of Minnesota
Seung Hwan (Allen) Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, where he joined the faculty in Fall 2025. His research sits at the intersection of metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, and sustainable biomanufacturing. His lab develops novel enzyme platforms for upgrading waste-derived feedstocks into high-value molecules, and engineers microbial and cellular metabolism to advance biotechnology across chemical, environmental, and biopharmaceutical applications. Allen received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from UCLA (2017, advised by Jim Liao), and his Ph.D. from Rice University (2022, advised by Ramon Gonzalez), and completed postdoctoral training with Greg Stephanopoulos at MIT.
Arpan Bandyopadhyay
Associate Director of Pivotal Biologics Technical Development
Gilead Sciences
Arpan Bandyopadhyay is an Associate Director of Pivotal Biologics Technical Development at Gilead Sciences in Oceanside, CA. His team in Gilead is responsible for advancing the company's cell culture process platform, commercial process development, tech-transfer, and commercialization activities for multiple modalities. Prior to joining Gilead, Arpan spent 4 years at Merck & Co in Kenilworth, NJ where he supported multiple molecules in various stages of the product life cycle including process development, process characterization, tech-transfer, and post-commercial support. At both Gilead and Merck, Arpan has worked with cross-functional teams and spearheaded the efforts to standardize the framework for various program deliverables to improve efficiencies and support accelerated commercialization timelines.
Arpan obtained his Ph.D. from the Univeristy of Minnesota and a B.Tech and M.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in Chemical Engineering. Along the way, he has received several awards. Arpan's scientific publications cover areas in microbial community signaling, genomics of CHO cells, and systems biotechnology. He is an active member of the cell bioprocessing community, serving as session co-chair for conferences and as a peer reviewer for several journals.
Ben Hackel, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
University of Minnesota
Ben Hackel is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. He earned degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin (B.S. 2003, advised by Eric Shusta) and MIT (Ph.D. 2009, advised by Dane Wittrup) and performed postdoctoral research in the radiology department at Stanford University (Sam Gambhir). Since its inception in 2011, the Hackel lab has advanced protein engineering technologies to develop physiological molecular targeting agents for molecular diagnostics and targeted therapy, with a focus on oncology, inflammation, and infectious disease.
Sofie O'Brien
Principal Scientist, Cell Line Development, Pfizer
Sofie O’Brien is a Principal Scientist in the Molecular and Cellular Technologies (Cell Line Development) group within Bioprocess Research and Development at Pfizer in Bothell, WA. Her work supports clone selection and production cell line characterization by integrating omics technologies, automation, and streamlined data workflows. Sofie’s expertise includes development of novel bioinformatic pipelines, including patented work on identification of regions for targeted transgene integration. She recently published a method using next-generation sequencing for genetic characterization of CHO production cell lines as a high-throughput alternative to traditional low-resolution Southern and Northern blots.
Sofie received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota and her B.S. in Biochemistry and Biology (Physiology) from the University of Washington. Her doctoral research focused on genome engineering and omics analysis of CHO cells for improved therapeutic protein production.
Zion Lee, Ph.D.
Principal Scientist/Group Leader
Cell Line Development
Genentech
Dr. Zion Lee is a Principal Scientist leading a Cell Line Development group at Genentech. His team focuses on enhancing productivity and product quality in targeted integration cell lines producing recombinant therapeutics. He is also engaged in technology development to accelerate timelines and improve product quality. He obtained his doctoral degree at the University of Minnesota. In his research, he has applied genomic tools extensively to probe accessible and transcriptionally active genomic regions in industrial host cells and explore their utility in cell line development. While at the University of Minnesota, he also pioneered the creation of stable cell lines for the production of recombinant AAV using a systems synthetic biology approach.
Bhanu Chandra Mulukutla, Ph.D.
Research Fellow
Bioprocess Research & Development
Pfizer
Dr. Mulukutla received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota’s Chemical Engineering program and joined Pfizer in 2012. At Pfizer, he is involved in developing cell culture processes for active portfolio projects and contriving newer technologies to improve cell culture process performance, specifically through optimization of cellular metabolism.
Dr. Mulukutla’s Ph.D. research entailed identifying mechanisms that governed metabolic shifts to lactate consumption in the late stages of fed-batch culture by employing systems biology approaches. He developed a mechanistic kinetic model to demonstrate the presence of a multiplicity of steady states in a glycolytic activity that could explain metabolic shifts in cell culture. For this work, Dr. Mulukutla received the award for best poster presentation at the Cell Culture Engineering XII conference in April 2010.
Dr. Mulukutla and his research group at Pfizer has been developing novel technologies for enhancing the fed-batch processes of CHO cell lines used for therapeutic production. Dr. Mulukutla’s research team was the first to identify inhibitory metabolic byproducts produced in CHO fed-batch cultures, and devised strategies to alleviate the inhibition. His group has metabolically engineered CHO cells to reduce or eliminate the production of these metabolic byproducts. The amino acid prototrophs of CHO cells that his team engineered can synthesize cysteine and tyrosine and proliferate in cysteine-free and tyrosine-free environments. His recent work applied systems biology approaches to determine the underlying cause for the glycosylation dynamics observed in CHO fed-batch cultures. Dr. Mulukutla has co-authored 19 scientific articles, multiple patents and patent applications, and is an active member of the cell bioprocessing community.
Qi Zhang, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
University of Minnesota
Qi Zhang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Minnesota. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and worked at BASF prior to joining the University of Minnesota. His research in the broad area of process systems engineering focuses on computational optimization and machine learning in sustainable energy and process systems, supply chain management, and bioengineering. Qi is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, the Junior Sargent Medal, and the AIChE CAST Outstanding Young Researcher Award. He has also been awarded the McKnight Land-Grant Professorship and the Guillermo E. Borja Career Development Award by the University of Minnesota.
Weichang Zhou, Ph.D.
CTO of MediLink Therapeutics
Dr. Weichang Zhou, currently Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of MediLink Therapeutics, is a globally distinguished leader in cell culture engineering and biomanufacturing with over 30-year distinguished industrial experience in biologics development and manufacturing, including process development, scale-up, technology transfer, large-scale manufacturing, CMC strategies, regulatory affairs support. Prior to his current role, he held key leadership roles at Merck, PDL BioPharma, Genzyme (Sanofi), and WuXi Biologics. His pioneering research, industrial innovation, and leadership have driven a number of publications, patents, and groundbreaking bioprocessing technologies.
Dr. Zhou obtained a bachelor's degree in organic chemical engineering from Jiangxi University of Technology in 1982, and a Ph.D. degree in natural sciences from the University of Hannover in 1989. He conducted postdoctoral research at the German Society for Chemical Equipment, Chemical Technology & Biotechnology (DECHEMA), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, and the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Zhou was elected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 2002 and a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in 2013. He served as the Chair of the division of biochemical technology of American Chemical Society in 2009. Dr. Zhou was awarded James M. Van Lanen Distinguished Service Award by American Chemical Society in 2010, "CTO of the Year" (Asia Pacific Biopharmaceutical Excellence Awards) in 2024, and the ECI Cell Culture Engineering Award in 2025, and the ECI Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing (ICB) Award in 2025, making him a leading figure with both academic and practical capabilities in the global biopharmaceutical industry. In 2026, Dr. Zhou was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for engineering and leadership in the field of manufacturing and development of biologics.