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Conference Speaker
David Estell, Ph.D.
Vice President of Technology
Genencor International
David Estell received his B.S. in chemistry in 1972. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry, with a major in biological chemistry, from Purdue University in 1978. His thesis research was on the interactions of proteases and their inhibitors. Dr. Estell was a postdoctoral fellow in neurobiology at Stanford University from 1978 to 1980. In 1980, Dr. Estell joined Genentech, where he led efforts on interferons and vaccines. He joined the biocatalysis department in 1982, and was a founder of Genencor, Inc., a joint venture formed by Genentech and Corning. Dr. Estell led the team that created the first engineered metabolic pathway for a vitamin. He initiated and led the subtilisin protein engineering project at Genencor. The group created the first commercially successful, engineered protein product. In 1986 he was promoted to the post of Research Fellow / Vice President. In 1993, Dr. Estell was a founder of Khepri Pharmaceuticals, a protease based drug discovery company, which developed new classes of protease inhibitors and protease drugs. In 1996, Khepri was acquired by Arris Pharmaceuticals and Dr. Estell returned to Genencor, where he led new initiatives in immunology and protein engineering. He is currently Vice President of Technology at Genencor.