Frank van Lier, Ph.D.

R&D Director, Bioprocess Engineering
National Research Council (NRC) Canada

Frank van Lier obtained an engineering degree and his doctorate in The Netherlands. His first employer was a bio-pharmaceutical contract manufacturing organisation. Well versed in process scale-up, he applied the principle to countries and moved to the company’s Montreal facility. After more than a decade of process development and GMP manufacturing within industry, he accepted a director function at the University of Montreal. After his term there, he joined an engineering firm as a bioprocess specialist. From there he was recruited as R&D and site director for a cell-therapy company. This company was down-sized, but Frank was retained as a self-employed consultant. He enlarged his client base and during about five year was heavily involved with the design, construction and start-up of a cell therapy center at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital in Montreal. He was also part-time QA manager for a veterinary vaccine company. Among the other clients of Frank was the NRC – the National Research Council. They seemed to like his work since they hired him as employee. Frank is currently the R&D director Bioprocess Engineering of the Human Health Therapeutics Research Center of the NRC.