Industry is strongly represented in DTU Bioengineering's Advisory Board

The food industry, the biotechnology industry and the bio pharma industry are highly represented in the newly appointed Advisory Board at DTU Bioengineering.  All the five new members are recruited from industry and Head of Department at DTU Bioengineering Bjarke Bak Christensen looks forward to the cooperation.

“We now have a strong board, which cuts across our industry partners who are also the ones who recruit the candidates we produce – especially from the biotechnology programs. I am pleased that I have been able to attract these key persons in Danish biotechnology to take on the work of our Advisory Board, "says Bjarke Bak Christensen.

The members of the Advisory Board commence 1 January 2018 and are appointed for a period of 2 years. The five members are:

Thomas Schäfer, MSc, PhD
Executive Vice President and CSO at Chr. Hansen from 1 November 2017. Thomas leads Chr. Hansen’s scientific organization for Food Cultures and Enzymes, and for Health and Nutrition. Former Vice President of BioAg research at Novozymes.

Thomas has more than 20 years of experience in industrial microbiology, R&D, innovation, business development and mergers & acquisitions, covering both bacteria and enzymes, and he has published several papers, and is also co-inventor on a number of patents.

Birgitte Skadhauge, MSc, PhD
Vice President, Group R & D, Carlsberg Group since 2014. Birgitte Skadhauge was employed as senior researcher at Carlsberg in 1996 and has since advanced to a position as Vice President for Carlsberg Laboratory. Throughout her career, Birgitte Skadhauge has been an active researcher and is first author or co-author of more than 30 publications. Since 2012, Birgitte Skadhauge has been honorary professor at the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Aarhus University.

Kirsten Drejer, MSc, PhD
Co-founder and CEO of Symphogen from 2000-2016. Board member of Symphogen, The Fund for Industrial Growth, Bioneer, Bioporto & Lyhne & Co.

She is on the Advisory Board for The Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Copenhagen and the Entrepreneurship Advisory Board at Copenhagen Business School. She is a member of the Executive Management group VL-42 and The Danish Academy of Technical Sciences. She is a NOME mentor in Nordic Mentor Network for Entrepreneurship and was awarded the ‘BiotechBuilder of the Year' prize in 2003, ‘Entrepreneur of the Year, Biotech' in 2007, and portrayed as one of the most distinctive women in biotech in 2013 by Fierce Biotech

Ejner Beck Jensen, MSc
Vice President of BioAg research and application at Novozymes. Head of Novozymes global research activities in within Biotechnology Research in Denmark, US, Japan and India. Responsible for technology development and science in a world leading company within Industrial Biotechnology. The organization has more than 400 employees and cover microbiology, protein chemistry, protein enginering, production strain technology, lab. fermentation and automatization.

Former board member of  BioPorto A/S, Fluxome A/S and Adenium Biotech A/S.

Asser Andersen, MSc
Senior Researcher at Global Research at Novo Nordisk, where he has been employed since 1989. Asser Andersen has more than 25 years experience in optimizing microbial expression platforms for effective production of recombinant biopharmaceuticals. He has extensive research experience and is the first author or co-author of 40 scientific publications and has applied for or received a patent for 11 inventions primarily concerning insulin polypeptides.