Manuel Corando

Overview

VP at IBET (Portugal), bioprocess engineering pioneer who developed the first perfusion system for retroviruses (published 2002) and continuous integrated gene therapy processes published 2010-2015. Manuel Corando serves as VP at IBET, a Portuguese research institute founded after MIT bioprocess engineering sabbaticals in the 1980s, where his team recognised that animal cell culture would drive most future biologicals and built expertise spanning monoclonal antibodies, gene therapy vectors, and advanced cell models. Corando's team at IBET developed the first perfusion-based manufacturing process for retroviruses in the early 1990s (published 2002), motivated by recognising that retroviruses have an 8-hour half-life at 37°C, making 12-day batch culture yield product only on the last day — an obvious engineering problem that biologists had not yet solved. (Segment 5 (20:00-25:00))