Exploring commercial upstream processing of AAV

Hugo Rojas’s home-country is Mexico, where he did his BSc in Biotechnology Engineering at the National Polytechnic Institute, with a thesis on characterization of cyanobacteria growing in bioreactor. After finalizing his studies, he worked for a year at the local biopharmaceutical Probiomed as technician in analytical development. Then he pursued a MSc in Life Sciences and Technology and PhD in the group of Cell Systems Engineering at Delft University of Technology focusing on metabolic engineering of yeast. After his studies, he started his career as Fermentation Scientists at INVISTA UK, working on development of gas fermentation and valorization of waste streams. Then moved on to a role in Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) as USP Development Scientists in the department of Bacterial Vaccines Development. Currently, he works at uniQure as USP Lead Scientist, relentlessly pursuing a next-generation AAV production process with insect cells, which has taken his scientific interests towards investigating scale-down models in high-throughput platforms, cell line development, process modeling and rational process intensification leveraging information obtained through PAT.  His hobbies are videogaming, animals, playing guitar and acting.