Blaine Pfeifer featured on The Best of Our Knowledge

As always, host Bob Barrett selects an Academic Minute to air during The Best of Our Knowledge.

Each week this program examines some of the issues unique to college campuses, looks at the latest research, and invites commentary from experts and administrators from all levels of education.

For this week‘s edition (#1325), Bob has selected Dr. Blaine Pfeifer’s segment that explores how E. Coli can have positive benefits as well.  Blaine Pfeifer is an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering at the University at Buffalo.

Dr. Pfeifer’s work seeks to influence cellular, metabolic, and process events required to produce new therapeutic products. As an example, he is studying how to engineer E. coli to generate new varieties of erythromycin, a popular antibiotic, which may ultimately be used to fight drug-resistant bacteria. Another project centers on generating potent anticancer agents through recombinant DNA technology. One target of interest is the anticancer drug Taxol.

Prior to arriving at the University at Buffalo, Dr. Pfiefer earned a PhD in chemical engineering from Stanford University and conducted postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Listen to The Best of Our Knowledge on WAMC.org or any of its carriage stations.