The Amgen Award (supported by Amgen, Inc., Thousand Oaks, California, USA), is given in memory of James E. Bailey to recognize research excellence and leadership in Biochemical Engineering.

We are proud to announce that the 2013 Amgen Biochemical Engineering Award has been given to Professor Sang Yup Lee for his extensive contributions to the field of biochemical engineering.

Dr. Lee is well known for his impressive work on metabolic engineering of E. coli and other bacteria for production of the fuels, chemicals, materials, proteins and pharmaceuticals. He has made a number of seminal contributions to the field of biochemical engineering, including advancing the use of genome-scale metabolic models for designing metabolic networks that can be used to over-produce metabolites and biopolymers, an approach he refer to as systems biotechnology, but he has also made seminal contributions in the field of synthetic biology, industrial biotechnology and nanobiotechnology.

Besides his outstanding research contributions Dr. Lee has also demonstrated leadership in terms of serving as editor for several different scientific journals and for founding the World Council of Industrial Biotechnology.

Sang Yup Lee received B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Seoul National University in 1986, and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University in 1991. Currently, he is Distinguished Professor and Dean of College of Life Science and Bioengineering at KAIST. He is also the Director of Center for Systems and Synthetic Biotechnology, Director of BioProcess Engineering Research Center, and Director of Bioinformatics Research Center. He has published more than 430 journal papers and he is the inventor of more than 550 patents.

He received the National Order of Merit, POSCO TJ Park Prize, Citation Classic Award, Elmer Gaden Award, Merck Metabolic Engineering Award, ACS Marvin Johnson Award, and SIMB Charles Thom Award among other awards. He is currently Fellow of AAAS, American Academy of Microbiology, Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Korean Academy of Science and Technology, National Academy of Engineering of Korea, and American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He is also a Foreign Associate of National Academy of Engineering USA, Editor-in-Chief of Biotechnology Journal, and editor and board member of many journals. He has served as the Chairman of the Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies of the World Economic Forum, and is currently the Chairman of the Global Agenda Council on Biotechnology.

Winners of the Amgen Award.