SPICA 2024

Chief Technology Officer, Ring Therapeutics, and
Operating Partner, Flagship Pioneering, Cambridge, MA

During his 30-year career, Konstantin has continually spearheaded the development and deployment of cutting-edge biomanufacturing technologies. His expertise spans the commercialization of various therapeutic modalities, encompassing small molecules, monoclonal antibodies, blood factors, enzymes, exosomes, and gene therapies. Over the past two decades, Konstantin has been a pioneer in advancing integrated continuous biomanufacturing, which is increasingly being adopted by the biotech industry.

Currently, as the Chief Technology Officer at Ring Therapeutics, Konstantin oversees the development, scale-up, manufacturing, and characterization of innovative Anellovirus-based gene therapy medicines. Simultaneously, he holds the role of Operating Partner at Flagship Pioneering, a premier biotech venture capital firm. Konstantin also contributes his expertise as a member of the Board of Directors at Repligen Corporation.

Prior to joining Ring, Konstantin served as the Chief Technology Officer at Codiak Biosciences, where he led the development of advanced biotherapeutics utilizing engineered exosomes derived from human cells. Earlier in his career, he held the position of Vice President of late-stage process and technology development at Genzyme/Sanofi and served as Head of Process Sciences at Bayer Corp in Berkeley, CA.

Konstantin earned his Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering from Osaka University, Japan, followed by a post-doctoral assignment at DuPont and the University of Delaware. He completed his B.Sc. in Process Automation and M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from the Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria.

Dejan has spent the last thirteen years working for a Novartis company. Currently he is working as a Senior Manager in Downstream Process Development Department. With a PhD degree in physics Dejan has a strong background in physical principles of protein association/aggregation, along with additional skills in mathematical modelling, statistical analysis and experimental biophysics. Dejan is currently leading a team of scientists responsible for early phase DSP process development and setting up new technology development and implementation strategy in downstream processing. Majority of his work is establishing new workflow of downstream process development utilized by applied modelling concept.

Cristiana Boi is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Alma Mater Studiorum-Università di Bologna, Italy and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, USA. She holds the Italian Habilitation as Full Professor for the academic field 09/D2-Systems, methods and technologies of chemical and process engineering.
She graduated in Chemical Engineering from the University of Bologna in 1991 and obtained her Ph.D. in Chemical and Environmental Engineering from the University of Bologna in 1996, with a joint project with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY, USA. Her research interests are in downstream processing in biotechnology with a focus on membranes and chromatographic processes for highly selective separations. In particular, she is interested in the preparation, modification and characterization of functional materials for bio-separations, biomedical applications, water purification and the production of biopharmaceuticals.

Alessandro Butté received his MSc. at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and his Ph.D. at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) in Chemical Engineering. After a postdoc at the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA), he joined ETH Zurich as a senior scientist. In 2008, he joined Lonza as head of downstream technologies in the sectors of small molecules and peptides and, later, as project manager. He was also involved in the pilot program to introduce Quality by Design. In 2013, he joined back ETH as a lecturer, and, in 2017, he co-founded DataHow AG, where he is serving as CEO. He is the author of more than 100 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and several patents. In 2015 he completed an executive MBA at the University of St. Gallen.

With a Ph. D. in organic chemistry from the University of Karlsruhe (KIT), Ralf Eisenhuth joined Bachem AG in 2008 as a team leader. Over the last two decades, he held several positions at Bachem; ranging from process development to leading of the large-scale purification department at Bachems main site in Bubendorf. In his current position as Principal Scientist, his focus is on innovative purification technologies and processes for oligonucleotides and peptides. In the recent years, he spend most of his time establishing Bachems capability for large scale MCSGP purification of oligonucleotides and peptides under GMP.

Maria is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London. She holds a PhD degree in Process Systems Engineering from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London and an MSc from the same department. She completed her undergraduate studies at the School of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens and she conducted her Diploma Thesis in Food Process Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin. Maria’s research focuses on the development of Process Systems Engineering tools (modelling, optimisation and control) with application to Life Science and Energy Systems. Her research outputs to date have been acknowledged through over 40 peer reviewed and conference publications, over 40 oral presentations at international conferences and four international awards, including IChemE’s Junior Sargent Medal (2023).

Cristina Peixoto graduated in Applied Chemistry and she holds a PhD in Engineering Sciences from Instituto de Tecnologia Quimica Biológica (ITQB) from New University of Lisbon. Working in Animal Cell Technology since 1996, her PhD contributed to the establishment of several scalable purification processes for complex biopharmaceuticals, mainly virus and virus like particles for vaccine and gene therapy. Meanwhile Cristina managed more than 30 research contract projects with Industrial partners, some of the processes developed are nowadays in phase I and II. She is invited lecturer in several PhD and Master Programs. She published over 70 manuscripts in refereed international journals.

Antoni Severino is currently Principal Scientist – Large Scale Purification at UCB Biopharma Belgium for 10 years. As a Chemical Process Engineer, he completed a PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Mons in Belgium about Simulated Moving Bed (SMB). At UCB, he is responsible for the large scale purification and chiral separation platform within Global Discovery Chemistry Department. His group supports Medicinal Chemistry Research in Braine-l’Alleud (Belgium) and Slough (UK) by HPLC and SFC but also Development and Manufacturing for MCC processes. In addition to daily support within NCE research, Antoni and his team contribute to the development of integrated automated platforms for small/mid-scale achiral purification as part of the global effort to improve digitalization and data management.

Sara Badr is an Associate Professor at the department of Chemical System Engineering at the University of Tokyo. She specializes in process design, and assessment for the sustainable development of chemical and biological process systems. Her research in the biopharmaceutical industry focuses on digitalization and process modeling , where she works on integrating mechanistic and data-driven models for process design, optimization and control applications.

Prof. Sonja Berensmeier has led the Chair of Bioseparation Engineering at the Technical University of Munich since 2009 after she held a professorship in the field of enzyme technology as one of the youngest researchers in her field at the University of Applied Sciences Mannheim. Previously, she worked as a group leader at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in the area of biofunctional surfaces. She meets the challenge of integrating molecular biology, biotechnology, particle technology, and process engineering. Her current research focuses on process intensification by adsorptive separation methods, where she specializes in magnetic and conductive materials and their translation into new process designs. Her almost 100 peer-reviewed papers are currently cited over 440 times a year, and she is the author of 2 book chapters. As a mentor of two spin-offs and holder of several patents and patent applications, she shows the innovative power of her work.

Antonio Gaetano Cardillo, Associate Director, Scientific Leader in Drug Substance Technical Research and Development, GSK Vaccines.
Master’s degree and PhD in Chemical engineering at University of Bologna. Started in GSK Vaccines as a scientist - held product development positions of increasing professional responsibility.
Member of the Global Innovation Centre for Drug Substance Technical Research and leading Automation and Process analytical technology implementation. Working on digital twin for vaccine processes.

Martina Catani is assistant professor of analytical chemistry at the University of Ferrara (Dept. of Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Agricultural Sciences) and she received a PhD in chemical sciences in 2018 from the same University.
During her PhD, she has spent research periods at VUB Brussels (Belgium) and University of Pécs (Hungary). Then, she worked at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) as postdoctoral research fellow in 2019. Martina works in the field of liquid chromatography for both analytical and preparative purposes. Her main research activities are focused on purification of polypeptides, oligonucleotides, proteins by means of single-column and continuous countercurrent multicolumn preparative LC; investigation of kinetic and thermodynamic phenomena in chiral and achiral HPLC and SFC and, more recently, she has started dedicating also to analytical approaches applied to omics science. She is co-author of more than 60 papers on peer reviewed journal and she has presented her research activities as invited speaker in several national and international meetings. She has been the recipient of many awards, including the “Csaba Horváth Young Scientist Award” conferred at HPLC2018 Washington (USA), the “2021 Young Researcher Award” conferred by the Analytical Chemistry Division of the Italian Chemical Society and in 2024 of the “Emerging Leader in Chromatography Award” conferred by LCGC.

Thomas Müller-Späth, Dr. sc. ETH, Dipl.-Ing., is CEO and co-founder of ChromaCon AG, a YMC company. Thomas studied chemical engineering at the Technical University of Hamburg, Germany, and at the University of California, Berkeley (USA). Thomas gained further R&D experience at Bayer Healthcare in Berkeley, CA (USA), and Beiersdorf AG, Hamburg (GER). He obtained his PhD in the area of the multi-column-technology for the purification of proteins at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in the group of Prof. Morbidelli in 2008. Thomas is inventor of several patents and has authored numerous scientific articles on continuous chromatography for biopharmaceuticals.

Jochen Strube is a full Professor of Chemical and Biotechnology Engineering and Director of the Institute for Separation and Process Technology at Clausthal University of Technology (Germany) since 2006.
SMB chromatography is followed up since 1991.
After receiving his Dr.-Ing. and Habilitation/“venia legendi” degree for Chemical Engineering at Technical University of Dortmund he worked for the Bayer AG on process design and development as well as cGMP manufacturing support for chromatography and liquid-liquid extraction. Innovative green manufacturing technologies for botanicals and biologics as well as metal-ion purification in urban mining, batch2conti, predictive model-based process design, process intensification, (QbD) quality-by-design and (PAT) process analytical technology for autonomous operation with aid of digital twins as well as production data analysis towards digitalisation/industry 4.0 are the current topics.
With aid of mechanical and electrical workshops explosion proof (ATEX) mini-plant facilities for chemicals and botanicals are operated at the institute as well as a biotechnology mini-plant for biologics under S1/S2 gene-/biosafety allowance for mabs, fragments, peptides, pdna/mrna, VLPs/exosomes and ACT on cell-lines like CHO, HEK and e.coli. Plant cell fermentation with downstream processing is an actual issue. Politically demanded climate neutrality after 2045 leads to GWP at COGs minimization studies.
Interdisciplinary cooperations with particle technology, automation, recycling, chemical analytics as well as mathematics, botanics and biology are established.
His work is documented in about 9 patents, 300 papers and 12 books/chapters and includes various industrial consulting projects in order to industrialize innovations.