Balaji Somasundaram

Balaji has 12 years research experience in the areas of protein expression, recovery and characterisation. He has delivered on industry-relevant projects including human enterovirus-like particle vaccine development, robust downstream bioprocess development for biosimilars, design & production of SARS-CoV-2 spike and nucleocapsid proteins to accelerate diagnostics development and bioprocess intensification through the development of continuous chromatography and membrane-based protein separation.

Based in Brisbane, Balaji has a joint appointment as the Strategy and Operations Manager at the Protein Expression Facility, housed at the University of Queensland (UQ), where he leads the operations of the facility to ensure the highest level of efficiency in the provision of research services in recombinant protein production to advance academic and industry research. In this role, he has established several national and international collaborations and provided strategic research leadership in a multi-stakeholder environment that includes academia, industry, and government.

Balaji has a Doctor of Philosophy in Chemical and Process Engineering from The University of Canterbury, New Zealand.