Christoph Herwig, bioprocess engineer, graduated from the process engineering department, university of technology RWTH Aachen in 1994. He worked in industry in the design and commissioning of large chemical facilities prior to enter his interdisciplinary PhD studies at the University of Technology EPFL, Lausanne Switzerland in the field of bioprocess identification. Subsequently he positioned himself at the interface between bioprocess development and facility design of biopharmaceutical facilities working in different companies from process development over engineering services to biopharmaceutical production. 

Since 2008, he has been a full professor for biochemical engineering at the Vienna University of Technology. The research area focuses on the development of method of science based and efficient bioprocess development for biopharmaceuticals along PAT and QbD principles in upstream and downstream within industry driven projects.

1. You’ve mentioned that the development and control of biopharmaceutical processes is still a time extensive and complex task. Do you think it will always be like this?

Yes it is a complex task as the multivariate interactions between many parameters and quality attributes as well as key performance indicators need to elucidated. The first significant step for acceleration will be the provision of timely measurements of quality attributes, as they are as of now hardly available, the second one is going beyond trivial statistical regression to data science approaches.

2. What do you most enjoy about your work?

Interdisciplinarity and motivated science oriented generation making use of the wealth of knowledge through combination of it.

3. What do you hope people will take away from your webinar?

There are solutions to know about the quality attributes across the full process in a timely manner. The solution is a combination of  new measurement principle using monoliths and sound s data science approaches.

4. What would someone be surprised to know about you?

Since I was 12 years old I have been a portrait photographer for magazines and newspapers. Also, I love riding on roller coasters with my daughters. I understand this as a unique privileged combination!

5. Who or what inspired you to get into the industry?

As being currently in academia, the question should be why did I return from industry to academia! 1) academics must have experienced the real life being confronted with meeting timelines and costs to do successful research projects. 2) my motivation to return to academia, after having been 12 years in industry, was the conviction, that we can solve industrial challenges by generic methods, hence being a forefront multiplier for doing it right. 

Prof. Dr.-techn. Christoph Herwig will be presenting BIA Separations’ webinar ‘CQA impurity monitoring for integrated bioprocessing’ on the 17th September at 10am New York/3pm London. Read more and register here.