Matthew Croughan joins Keck Graduate Institute
Inaugural Rathmann Professor and Director of the Amgen Bioprocessing Center
Dr. Croughan currently works as an independent consultant providing expert guidance on biopharmaceutical process development and manufacturing issues for more than 30 firms including Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Biogen IDEC, and Schering-Plough. He also serves part-time as the Industrial Liaison Officer for the Biotechnology Process Engineering Center at MIT.
Previously Dr. Croughan was the chief scientist for Genentech.’s cell culture facility, built for the production of therapeutic antibodies. Earlier in his career at Genentech, Inc., he developed the first high-density, fed-batch cell culture process, a breakthrough platform technology now used throughout the biopharmaceutical industry. Dr. Croughan also served as the Director of Cell Processing and Expansion at Dendreon (formerly Activated Cell Therapy).
Dr. Croughan will direct the new Amgen Bioprocessing Center, a new facility at KGI made possible with a $2 million grant from the Amgen Foundation. This new Center will benefit the entire biotechnology industry and will be used to educate students about the commercial development and production of biological molecules that have the potential to provide life-changing and life-giving therapies for diabetes, cancer, arthritis, cardiovascular and infectious diseases. In addition to leading the Amgen Bioprocessing Center, Dr. Croughan will serve as KGI’s first George B. and Joy Rathmann Professor. Dr. Dennis Fenton, Executive Vice President of Operations at Amgen and a member of the KGI Board of Trustees, and his wife Linda established the professorship earlier this year in honor of the Rathmanns.
Dr. Croughan obtained his PhD in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds a BS in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley. He is a member of the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and has authored numerous scientific papers.