Modern Biotechnology

Johannes (Hans) Tramper was born in 1949 in 's Gravenpolder, the Netherlands. He later studied at the Technical University of Delft, Purdue University in the US and Wageningen University. Since 1987 he has been a professor of Bioprocess Technology at the latter institute. In addition to his main activities in education and research, he also spends a lot of time and effort informing the wider public about modern biotechnology. For more than 20 years he has traversed the Netherlands with his Pandora's box, visiting schools and libraries, attending women's societies, Rotary and Lions clubs, student associations, teacher's gatherings and using many other occasions, to promote discussions on the social and ethical aspects of biotechnology. As a reward for his work in this area, in 2003 Hans Tramper was awarded an honorary membership of the Dutch Biotechnology Association. Since March 2007 he has occupied a place on the ISI list of highly cited authors. Yang Zhu was born in Shanghai in 1955. After the cultural revolution in China, he followed a university course in Bioprocess Technology at East China University of Science and Technology. After obtaining his degree, he stayed on at the university as a lecturer. In 1986, Yang Zhu was sent as a guest researcher by the Chinese Ministry of Education to the Institute for Microbiology at Munster University, Germany. Since 1993 he has worked in the Netherlands, firstly as a scientific researcher at TNO Voeding in Zeist. In 1997 he obtained a PhD in bioprocess technology from the Agricultural University of Wageningen, as it was then called. He is now a senior project manager in the Business Unit Biosciences at TNO Quality of Life in Zeist.