Jens Nielsen

Jens Nielsen is a Danish academic and biochemical engineer.

Biography and academic career

Jens Nielsen has an MSc degree in Chemical Engineering and a PhD degree (1989) in Biochemical Engineering from the Danish Technical University (DTU), and after that established his independent research group and was appointed full Professor there in 1998. He was Fulbright visiting professor at MIT in 1995–1996. At DTU he founded and directed Center for Microbial Biotechnology.

In 2008 he was recruited as Professor and Director to Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, where he is currently directing a research group of more than 50 people. At Chalmers he established the Area of Advance Life Science Engineering, a cross departmental strategic research initiative and was founding Head of the Department of Biology and Biological Engineering, which now encompass more than 170 people.

Jens Nielsen has published so far more than 550 research papers that have been cited more than 18,000 times (current h-index 67), co-authored more than 40 books and he is inventor of more than 50 patents. He was identified by Thompson Reuter as a highly cited researcher in 2015.

Jens Nielsen founded Fluxome A/S that raised more than M20EUR in venture capital. This company metabolically engineered yeast for production of resveratrol and used this yeast for commercial production of this compound. This process was acquired by the company Evolva. Jens Nielsen has founded several other biotech companies, including Metabogen AB and Biopetrolia AB, and he has served in the scientific advisory board of a range of different biotech companies in the USA and Europe.

He has received numerous Danish and international awards awards including the Villum Kann Rasmussen’s Årslegat, Merck Award for Metabolic Engineering, Amgen Award for Biochemical Engineering, Nature Mentor Award, the Gaden Award, the Norblad-Ekstrand gold medal and the Novozymes Prize.

Jens Nielsen is member of several academies, including the National Academy of Engineering in USA,[1] the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters, the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and the American Academy of Microbiology.[2] He is a founding president of the International Metabolic Engineering Society.

External links

References

  1. ↑ US National Academy of Engineering
  2. ↑ American Academy of Microbiology
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