Ken Nobe Founders Lecture

in
Founders Lectureship in Honor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Professor Ken Nobe 2010
Dr. Nobe is a native of Berkeley, California and received his BS degree from the
University of California, Berkeley. He earned his PhD degree from UCLA where
he was appointed assistant professor in the school of engineering. He
advanced through the academic ranks to Professor in 1968, served as Chair of May 7, 2010, 1:30 PM
the Chemical, Nuclear and Thermal Engineering Department from 1978 to
This lecture will be held in the Lecture Hall
1983, and was the founding Chair of the Chemical Engineering Department
from 1983 to 1984. He is a world-renowned scientist recognized especially for of the UCLA California Nano Systems Institute (CNSI)
his pioneering research on catalytic air pollution control of exhaust emissions
from automotive and stationary sources, as well as his studies of
electrochemical processes including kinetics and mechanisms of
electrodissolution and electrodeposition, corrosion, electrochemical energy
systems, and electrodeposited nano-sized high performance soft and hard
magnetics. During his distinguished career, he has been honored with the 1962
UCLA Distinguished Teacher Award and the 1992 Linford Award from the
Electrochemcial Society. As an example of his numerous contributions to the Hosted by
department, Dr. Nobe along with his wife Mary endowed the William F. Seyer Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Chair in Materials Electrochemistry at UCLA in 2000 in honor of his graduate
research advisor, Dr. William Seyer. University of California, Los Angeles
The Founders Lectures in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering are
made possible by the Founders Lectureship Fund, established at UCLA by Co-sponsored by
families, friends, and former students of Dr. Ken Nobe and Dr. Sheldon
Friedlander. The objective of this lectureship is to bring to the campus world-
renowned researchers in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering or related
disciplines. The lectures alternate yearly between the two series, named in
honor of Dr. Nobe and Dr. Friedlander.

GEORGE GEORGIOU
George Georgiou is the Cockrell Endowed Professor at the University of Texas,
Austin where he has joint appointments in Chemical Engineering, Molecular
Genetics and Microbiology, and Biomedical Engineering. He is also a member
of the Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Texas, Austin.
He received his B.Sc. degree from the University of Manchester, U.K. and his
Ph.D. from Cornell in 1987. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of
Engineering and a Fellow of the American Society for Microbiology, the
American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and the American
Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers. He has received numerous
awards including the AIChE Professional Progress Award for outstanding
contributions to Chemical Engineering by an individual under 45 (2003) and
was named as “One of the Top 100 Eminent Chemical Engineers of the
Modern Era” by AIChE (2008). His research is focused on the discovery and
pharmacological optimization of protein therapeutics and also on the
mechanisms of redox homeostasis and protein secretion in bacteria. Dr.
Georgiou and his collaborators have developed the anti-infective antibody
drug, Anthem™, currently in late-stage clinical development, an array of
therapeutic enzymes in preclinical development, and antibodies for cancer
chemotherapy. Dr. Georgiou has published >170 research articles and is co-
inventor on 38 US patent applications of which 26 have been licensed to
pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
Third Founders Lecture in Chemical and
Biomolecular Engineering
Engineering The Next Generation of Cancer
Therapeutic Enzymes and Antibodies
George Georgiou
Professor of Chemical Engineering
University of Texas at Austin
Our lab is broadly interested in the development of platform technologies for
the discovery and pharmacological development of therapeutic proteins,
especially for cancer. In recent years, there has been intense interest on the
metabolic abnormalities displayed by cancer cells and how these effects may
be exploited for therapeutic purposes. The use of enzymes to systemically
deplete metabolites required for the growth of tumor cells, but not of normal
tissues, has been pursued for many years. However, with the exception of
childhood leukemia (ALL) where administration of the bacterial enzyme,
asparaginase, has been shown to have significant therapeutic benefit, there are
no other enzyme drugs for cancer treatment. This is because bacterial
enzymes elicit strong adverse responses due to immunogenicity, whereas
human enzymes that display either the proper catalytic activity or
pharmacological properties for reactions relevant to cancer therapy are not
available. We have been using protein engineering strategies to create human
enzymes that display new catalytic properties of therapeutic relevance and also
the proper stability and in vivo persistence appropriate for therapeutic
applications. We have developed a family of such therapeutics for various
malignancies. One such example, an engineered human arginase I for the
treatment of liver cancer and metastatic melanoma is now in advanced
preclinical development.
In parallel, we have been developing a number of technologies for the isolation
of IgG antibodies to cancer antigens and for the enhancement of Fc-mediated
effector functions. A summary of this work will also be presented.
This lecture will be held in the Lecture Hall
of the UCLA California Nano Systems Institute (CNSI)
1:30 PM-3:00 PM