1982 – 1986 Research Associate, Biochemical Engineering Laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, Columbia University, New York, USA. Subject: Production, design and use of microbial lytic enzyme systems. Continuous culture studies of multienzyme system synthesis and regulation. Use of enzyme systems in the lysis of yeast and bacteria.

1985 – Ph. D. Biochemical Engineering , University of London , 1985. Topic: Regulation of Microbial Enzyme Synthesis Title: The Synthesis and Regulation fo Lytic Enzyme Systems by Cytophaga sp. and Oerskovia sp.

1979 – 1980 Research Assistant, Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine, Universidad of Chile

1977 – BSc. Biochemistry, Queen Elizabeth College, University of London.

52 publications in international journals, ISI, with peer review (in English)

Research Interests

Biotechnology and Metabolic Engineering

The group of Professor Dr. B. Andrews uses metabolic engineering and metabolic flux analysis to optimize the synthesis of recombinant proteins in yeast cells using as a model system the synthesis of high levels of intracellular recombinant protein (human superoxide dismutase, SOD) in S.cerevisiae rhSOD 2060 411 SGA122 cultures, and its comparison with the wild type strain (without the expression system, not producing the recombinant protein). These studies allow the analysis and optimization of all the metabolic fluxes involved in a cell during the synthesis of a recombinant protein, a stoichiometric model was built, which includes 78 reactions, according to metabolic pathways operative in these strains. The results suggest conditions that favor the synthesis and can improve specific production of SOD. The comparison of cells with and without plasmid using DNA Microarray technology is currently underway. We are planning to expand this analysis to animal cell cultures.

Another important area of research is concerned with the study of protein separation in Aqueous Two-Phase Systems, this has included studies of phase separation and more recently how the physico chemical properties, mainly hydrophobicity and charge, of proteins can be used to predict their partitioning.