Dr Lilia M Babé - Associate Editor

Dr Lilia Babé is a staff scientist at Cambridge Antibody Technology. Her current duties include: new process development, technical transfer of manufacturing processes, analytical assay development and implementation for production strains and protein therapeutic products, in support of oncology programs. Lilia obtained a B.S. in from the University of Miami, Florida, majoring in Biochemistry and French. She received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the same institution, for work on viral chromatin structure. Lilia moved to the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) for a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, where she worked on an integrated program to develop human-immunodeficiency-virus (HIV) protease inhibitors using structure-based drug design. She remained as a research associate for three additional years developing gene-based strategies for HIV inhibition. After leaving UCSF, Lilia joined a biotechnology start-up, Khepri Pharmaceuticals, to continue work on protease inhibitors, with focus on infectious diseases and inflammation. Following the merger of Khepri with Axys Pharmaceuticals, she joined the Pharmacology Department, and oversaw discovery efforts on viral targets. She later led the Cell Biology Department at Axys, developing appropriate models for testing protease inhibitors against various oncology targets. Lilia joined Genencor International in 2000 during the creation of a new biopharmaceutical division. She was the project leader for DNA vaccine discovery programs in hepatitis B virus (HBV) and human papillomavirus, leading to Investigational New Drug (IND) filing for the HBV immunotherapeutic; she also headed the Protein Science department, in charge of protein expression and characterization for support of early development candidates. She joined the Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT, an Astra Zeneca subsidiary) site in Palo Alto in December 2005.

Lilia’s areas of interest/expertise include: protein engineering for enhanced function and stability, microbial expression systems, viral assembly, proteases, and functional in vitro assay development.