Seminars with Professor Joerg Bohlmann and Vice President of R&D Kirsten Benjamin (Amyris Inc.)
Watch out!
You are invited to two really exciting afternoon seminars with Professor Joerg Bohlmann from the University of British Columbia and Vice President of R&D at Amyris Inc. Kirsten Benjamin.
The seminars will take place on Zoom on June 24th at 16:00-18:00.
The talk by Joerg Bohlmann has the title “BioEngineering of Montbretin-A: A Novel Treatment Option for Obesity and Diabetes” and starts at 16:00
Jörg is a Professor and Distinguished University Scholar at the Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Canada. His research focus is plant specialized metabolism and derived bioproducts, plant and forest genomics, and plant defense mechanisms. His key focus research areas are the biosynthesis and function of structurally complex terpenoids and phenolics like flavonol glycosides and bioengineering of these for applied uses. The large gene families of terpene synthases, cytochrome P450s and phenylalanine derived metabolism keep him busy and make him flourish! He holds appointments as Professor in the Department of Botany and in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, and is an Associate of the UBC Wine Research Centre. He is the Co-Director of the UBC Genome Sciences and Technology Graduate Program, and Associate Director of the Michael Smith Laboratories. He received his PhD from the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany, was a postdoctoral fellow at Washington State University and research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena.
The talk by Kirsten Benjamin has the title “Technology development for yeast-based commercial production of plant natural products” and starts at 17:00.
Kirsten has worked at Amyris, Inc. for more than 14 years, the last three years as the Vice President of R&D. Amyris is a globally leading fermentation product company pioneering the use of synthetic biology and bringing several novel fermentation products to the market. Kirsten has been directing the engineering of improved microbial strains for production of the semi-synthetic Artemisinin and directs the Biofene project. She has worked nine years with industrial biotechnology, gaining excellent expertise in microbial strain improvement using synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, and multidimensional strain characterization. Her proficiencies make the microbial production systems feel “Better, Faster and Superior” and thus highly valued. Prior to Amyris, she was a research fellow in systems biology at the Molecular Sciences Institute, CA, and a postdoctoral fellow in genetics at the University of California, San Francisco. She earned a BS with honors, double-majoring in philosophy and molecular and cellular biology, from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a member of SBE and the International Metabolic Engineering Society.
Please use the following Zoom-link to join the seminar: https://ucph-ku.zoom.us/j/64159005759