Primary Job Title Senior Director - Bioprocessing and Head of Bioprocessing and Technology Transfer Primary Organization Indigo
Location Tucson, Arizona, United States Regions Western US Gender Male
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Christopher M. DaCunha holds a B.S. degree in Biology and Biotechnology from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). While working on his undergraduate and graduate work, he held a position managing a start-up laboratory working on bacterial biopolymer research for heavy metal remediation systems.
He then went on to a position at WPI managing
the Bioprocess Laboratory where he led a team on contract manufacturing projects encompassing pharmaceutical R&D, process design, protein purification, heavy metal recovery, prototype design for bioreactors and chromatography columns, scaling, and biotechnology education programs. In addition, isolation, identification and characterization of novel organisms from diverse environments played a crucial role in several projects.
During this period he oversaw the design and construction of a new Bioprocess Facility at WPI’s Bioengineering Institute. Recently, he has worked in the biofuels industry as Senior R&D Scientist in the genetics, biochemistry, and pilot plant programs at EdenIQ, where he developed various genetic tools, methods for recombinant protein expression, and in-situ ethanol yield improvements.
He takes an active role in science education programs, and was a judge at CCSF’s Bridge to Biotech 2011 Poster competition, the iGEM 2011 World and 2012 Regional Championships at MIT and Stanford respectively, and the 2012 Bay Area BioGENEius competition at the Gladstone Institute.
