Jens Nielsen

Jens Nielsen
Prof. Jens Nielsen, Chalmers University of Technology, February 2017
Residence	Sweden
Nationality	Danish
Alma mater	Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Denmark
Known for	Metabolic engineering & Systems biology
Awards	2012 Nature Mentor Award, 2016 Novozymes Prize
Website	www.sysbio.se
Scientific career
Institutions	Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden; Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Biosustainability, DTU, Denmark; Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden
Doctoral advisor	Prof. John Villadsen

Jens Nielsen is a Professor of Systems Biology at Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. He is also Chief Science Officer at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability at the Technical University of Denmark. He is considered one of the leaders in the field of metabolic engineering, and he is the founding president of the International Metabolic Engineering Society.

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 60 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 about 200 people. Jens Nielsen has published so far more than 550 research papers, 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 and 2016. He is co-author of several textbooks, and his textbook on Bioreaction Engineering Principles has been published in three editions and his textbook on Metabolic Engineering has been translated to both Chinese and Japanese.

Jens Nielsen has been studying and engineering metabolism for almost 30 years. His work has produced, among other, natural rare molecules, antibiotics and biofuels. The scope of this work is to be able to produce valuable compounds in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way that does not depend on petrol processing or extraction from endangered plant species. He is also using his unique approach and methods to study metabolism in humans, with specific interest in metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and various cancers.

Jens Nielsen has worked on studying and improving many different industrial biotechnological processes. Initially he worked on physiological characterization of the filamentous fungus Penicillium chrysogenum that is used for penicillin production. This resulted in continued work, together with the Dutch company DSM, on development of a novel process for production of adipoyl-7-ADCA, a precursor for cephalexin. He also worked on characterization of many other fermentation processes used for antibiotics production, and through the use of his experimental and modelling techniques he assisted several companies with improving their production process. Jens Nielsen also worked on improving fermentation processed used for production of industrial enzymes, both using fungi and bacteria.