Joaquim M. S. Cabral - Associate Editor

Joaquim M. S. Cabral is Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal. Currently, he is the Head of Department, responsible for the Bioengineering Research Group at IST and the Director of the Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering, a Research Laboratory associated with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education in Portugal. He obtained his Diplomas in chemical engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico in 1976. His Ph.D. and ‘Habilitation’ degrees in biochemical engineering from IST were obtained in 1982 and 1988 respectively. After post-doctoral study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the period 1983-1984, he joined the IST faculty as an Assistant Professor and became a Full Professor in 1992. He was member of the Working Party/Section on Applied Biocatalysis of European Federation of Biotechnology from 1986 until 2005 and Chairman of this Section during the period 1991-1996). In 2005 he was nominated as an Honorary Member. He was also member and Chairman of the Task Group on Biotransformation of the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) Section on Biochemical Engineering Science (1996–2004) and a member of the Executive Committee of this EFB Section from 1999 until 2004. He serves as a member of several Advisory Boards, including the Biotechnology Strategy Group of the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC) (as Executive Secretary), The Royal Society (2002–2005), the Expert Panel of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, U.K. (2006–2009), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Review Committee of The Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering, University College London (1995, 1997 and 2005), the International Peer Review Committee of the B-Basic Program, Advanced Chemical Technologies for Sustainability, De Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), (2004, 2005 and 2007) and is the Co-ordinator of the Peer Review Committee for Research Grants of the Portuguese Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology Area (since 2000). He is on several editorial boards of scientific journals in the areas of biotechnology and tissue engineering. Joaquim Cabral's research aims at contributing to the development of biochemical engineering science through novel developments in Enzyme Engineering, Bioprocess Engineering and Stem Cell Bioengineering, by integrating molecular and cell biology in engineering. He has published over 300 research papers and has co-authored or edited five books. His research interests in enzyme engineering include the design of functional active and stable proteins, bioconversion processes in multiphase bioreactors and integrated bioconversion systems. Stem-cell bioengineering addresses the expansion and controlled differentiation of stem cells in an ex-vivo environment (the bioreactor). Haematopoietic, mesenchymal and embryonic stem cells are used as model systems. Bioseparation focuses on the process engineering and science for the purification of proteins, by integrating molecular biology with the fermentation and bioseparation processes to facilitate downstream processing.