Author Archives: Cheryl Scott

Growing the Future

    The 2010 BIO International Convention isn’t just about biotechnology-derived drugs and vaccines. The biotechnology industry as a whole seeks to address current global needs in other areas as well in light of diminishing resources and other environmental concerns. Biofuels development is entering its second wave. Agricultural researchers are finding ways to improve global access to both food and energy. And health-care policy is taking ethics and environmental sustainability into account while looking for new models that can help…

The Time Has Come for Automation in Bioprocessing

    As early as 1997, automation was ready to offer potential benefits to the bioprocess industry (1). Professor Bernhard Sonnleitner of the Zürich University of Applied Sciences’ Institute for Chemistry and Biological Chemistry suggested a “standard operating procedure†and pointed to the opportunities, requirements, and potential pitfalls of applying the principles of automation to bioprocess development and operations. If “boring and less interesting routine tasks†could “more efficiently and reliably be handed down to machines,†he explained, then personnel…