Jonathan Dordick, Ph.D., Vice President for Strategic Alliances and Translation and Institute Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), has recently received two prestigious honors.

Dordick received the D.I.C. Wang Award for Excellence in Biochemical Engineering from the Division of Biochemical Technology of the American Chemical Society on March 19. This award is a tribute to the pioneering contributions and leadership of Prof. Daniel I.C. Wang from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who over five decades defined the field of biochemical engineering, both in research and education. Wang exemplified innovative problem-solving through fundamental engineering principles and bridging research and commercialization. This award is co-sponsored by the Society of Biological Engineering and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. 

On April 12, Dordick received an honorary doctorate from the Universidade de Lisboa, the largest and most prestigious university in Portugal and one of Europe’s leading universities.

Dordick has made foundational contributions to enzyme technology and biomanufacturing. He pioneered the development of enzymatic and chemoenzymatic methods for new materials synthesis, initiated the new field of molecular bioprocessing, which combines biocatalytic molecular diversity and in vitro metabolic pathway engineering with high-throughput and high-content microfluidic- and microarray-based tools to generate biologically active compounds, and greatly expanded the use of enzymatic catalysis in chemical and pharmaceutical processing. Finally, he has addressed clinical translation in areas of infectious and neurological diseases, anticoagulant therapy, and highly sensitive point-of-care biosensors.

He has received numerous awards and honors, including election to the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Inventors; SBE James E. Bailey Award, Amgen Award in Biochemical and Molecular Engineering; AIChE Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering Award; and ACS-BIOT Marvin J. Johnson Award, among many other awards. He is fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, and American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He has cofounded several companies, including EnzyMed, Solidus Biosciences Inc., Redpin Therapeutics, SynAppBio, and Lavaage Inc. Dordick has published over 440 papers and is an inventor/co-inventor on over 50 patents and patent applications.