The Olaf A. Hougen Professorship in Chemical Engineering is funded by the Hougen Professorship Fund of the University of Wisconsin Foundation. Colleagues and former students of Professor Hougen, other friends, and corporations have contributed to the fund to honor one of the founders of the modern chemical engineering profession. The 2000 award to Bernhard Palsson continues a tradition of providing outstanding individuals with the opportunity, through visiting appointments, to advance chemical engineering by exercising their creative abilities in the congenial and stimulating environment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The complete notes of Bernhard Palsson's Hougen Lecture for 2000 is available at http://gcrg.ucsd.edu/presentations/hougen/hougen.htm.

Bernhard Palsson (34K JPG)

BERNHARD O. PALSSON

Bernhard O. Palsson is a Professor of Bioengineering and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Professor Palsson is the author of over 140 peer reviewed scientific articles and 18 U.S. patents, many of which are in the area of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, cell culture technology, bioreactor design, gene transfer, and metabolic engineering. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Chemical Engineering in 1984. He sits on the editorial boards of several leading peer-reviewed bioengineering and biotechnology journals. Professor Palsson held a faculty position and the University of Michigan for 11 years from 1984 to 1995. He received an Institute of International Education Fellowship in 1977, a Rotary Fellowship in 1979, and a NATO fellowship in 1984. He was named the G.G. Brown Associate Professor at Michigan in 1989, a Fulbright Fellow in 1995, and an Ib Henriksen Fellow in 1996. His current research at UCSD focuses on the construction of genome-scale models of cellular metabolism, and on stem cell fate processes.

Professor Palsson co-founded a biotechnology company, Aastrom Biosciences (NASDAQ: ASTM) in 1988 where he served as the Vice President of Developmental Research for two years. He is also the founder or co-founder of Oncosis, a company that is focused on the purging of occult tumor cells in autologous bone marrow transplants, Genomatica, a company that is focused on in silico biology, and the Iceland Genomics Corporation, a company that is focused on tracing the genetic basis for common human diseases in the Icelandic population.