Prof. Dr. Sven Panke

Sven Panke was an Assistant Professor of Bioprocess Engineering from 1.10.2001 to 1.11.2007 at the Institute of Process Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at the ETH Zurich. He continues as an Associate Professor there until 1.1.2009, when he changed into the recently founded Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering. 

He was born on December 26th in Germany in Braunschweig, where he lived until his -Abitur- in 1987. After two years of state service in Hamburg he moved back to Braunschweig to start in the recently established biotechnology program of the Technical University of Braunschweig. After his Vordiplom, he joined the group of Prof. Timmis at the German National Research Center for Biotechnology and worked for two years on the ecology of microbial degradation of xenobiotics. For his thesis project in molecular biology he moved to the lab of Dr. de Lorenzo at the CIB in Madrid. After finishing his studies in Januar 1995, he joined the Institute of Biotechnology and the lab of Prof. Witholt at ETH-Hönnggerberg to work on the production of fine chemicals with recombinant bacteria. He put this experience to practice when the Dutch chemical company DSM recruited him in 1999. Two years later, he moved back to Zurich to the ETH to become an assistant professor.

The Bioprocess Laboratoryof the ETH Zurich works on the development of novel and the imrprovement of exisiting enzymatic and fermentation processes. One focus is on the developmenf of miniaturzied and highly parallelized techniques to identify improved enzymes and cells. A second focus is on the analysis and rational construction of biosystems (synthetic biology).