Protein Crystallisation

Katja Palmunen studied Biochemistry and Biotechnology at University of Kuopio, Finland, and acquired her Master’s degree in Biotechnology in 1999. She has since worked with various therapeutic and nontherapeutic protein applications. Her career began studying treatment methods for hereditary enzyme deficiency diseases at Kuopio University Hospital, where she gained experience with upstream processing techniques by working with production of therapeutic protein in mammalian cell culture. Interest in downstream processing increased when she started at Macrocrystal Oy, Espoo, in 2000. Currently she works as a Project Manager specialising in protein purification and formulation techniques mainly by crystallisation and precipitation.

Kalevi Visuri is a founder and research director of Macrocrystal Oy. He specialises in large scale protein crystallisation and has more than 25 years’ experience in this field. His recent work includes crystallisation and formulation of pharmaceutical proteins. Before founding the company, he worked in the enzyme industry for many years. He graduated with an MSc in Biochemistry from the University of Helsinki. Following this, he worked for the Minerva Foundation, Institute for Medical research, studying vitamin B12 binding proteins. He has also been a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying enzyme catalysis in organic solvents.