Agilent Technologies Inc., opens an external URL in a new window (NYSE: A) today announced Professor Christoph Herwig has been selected to receive a prestigious Agilent Thought Leader Award. A prominent researcher in the field of bioprocess technology, Dr. Herwig is a Professor for Biochemical Engineering at TU Wien, Vienna, Austria.

Professor Herwig’s work focuses on the development of scientific end-to-end workflows in bioprocess technology. His interdisciplinary approach aims to generate a holistic process control strategy, including LC/MS process analytical technology (PAT) solutions to directly and in real-time determine critical quality attributes (CQAs). His group also concentrates on establishing "digital twins" – data-rich virtual copies of physical processes – which, together with continuous PAT measurements, will enable real-time state estimation and auto-feedback control of the bioprocess.

Bioprocess digital twins are an exciting new technology that changes how researchers do bioprocess development, process validation, and cGMP operations. Digital twins organize bioprocess development, can suggest experimental designs, and manage new knowledge, which dramatically cuts process development costs and accelerate commercialization, by combining previous platform knowledge to predict future process results. Smart, automated bioprocessing including digital twins is becoming an important topic within the fast-growing biopharmaceutical industry.

“I feel very honored to receive this prestigious award and I thank Agilent for their innovative mindset of future bioprocess design! Moreover, I am certain that our collaboration in this interdisciplinary field of PAT and digital twins possesses disruptive potential to deliver high quality, yet affordable, drugs for the world,” says Prof. Herwig.

"We are very pleased to present Prof. Herwig with this Agilent Thought Leader Award," says Dr. Stefan Schütte, Vice President and General Manager of the Division Liquid Phase Separation at Agilent and managing sponsor of this award. "We feel privileged to work with world-leading experts in this field, with the goal of taking the quality and productivity of bioprocesses to the next level through more efficient and effective process control. This collaboration with TU Wien is an important building block in helping the fast-growing biopharmaceutical industry to develop new drugs faster and more reliably."

The Agilent Thought Leader Award program promotes fundamental scientific advances by contributing financial support, products, and expertise to the research of influential thought leaders in the life sciences, diagnostics, and chemical analysis space. To learn more, visit the Agilent Thought Leader Award, opens an external URL in a new window web site.

Contact:

Dr. Christoph Herwig
TU Wien Bioprocess Technology
+43 676 4737217
christoph.herwig@tuwien.ac.at