The State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering (SKLBE), is one of the two state key labs concerning the downstream biotechnology in China. Construction of SKLBE was initiated in 1988 and was put into operation in 1992. The lab was evaluated by the State Development Planning Commission of China in 1995. The financial support for the construction was from the loan of the World Bank. In 2001, the lab passed the evaluations of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Biochemical engineering is an important area in modern biotechnology. It is generally called the downstream of biotechnology. As many breakthroughs appear, it is urgent that cells culture be scaled up, and that biological products be separated, purified and prepared on a large scale. Biochemical engineering is expected to carry out the above tasks and to bring about huge economic benefits in realizing sustainable development. It is the key to biotechnology development to intensify the researches into biological reactors and the separation, purification technologies for biological products. And biochemical engineering has been playing an increasingly important role in the above research fields.

In order to meet the requirements of biotechnology industries of China, in 1996, IPE collaborated with the East China University of Science and Technology and Nanjing University of Chemical Technology for a joint application to the establishment of the National Engineering Research Center for Biotechnology (NRCB). The petition was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST). IPE was responsible for constructing NRCB (Beijing), and in 2000, the center passed the evaluation of the MST.SKLBE and NRCB (Beijing) have mutual cooperation. They come into being a base of the biotechnology incubation involving theory, application, development and scale-up. They are equipped with numerous advanced instruments and facilities including HPLC, LC-MS, refrigerated centrifuges, ultracentrifuge, pilot liquid chromatography system, glucose and lactic acid analyzer, diode array spectrophotometer, capillaryelectrophoresis system, full-range Millipore ultra-filtration system, liquid chromatographic workstation for proteins, and gas chromatography. In addition, there are over twenty sets of reactors for animal/plant cell culture, and different styles of microbial fermentors.

Since 1996, the lab and the center have undertaken over 100 projects from "National 863 program", National Key Technology R&D Program, "National Natural Science Foundation of China", international cooperation projects, and research projects from governmental ministries and provincial governments. There have been also projects from industries for technology innovations.

The research subjects mainly include design of large-scale bioreactors for plant or animal cell culture, new type bioreactors for solid-state or submerged fermentation, metabolic engineering, chromatographic separation of natural products or protein, protein refolding, and chemical modification of protein etc.

The staff members have won many prestigious prizes including one second-grade award of National Scientific and Technological Process, and two first-grade, one second-grade and three third-grade awards of CAS Scientific and Technological Process. Over 600 papers, including 160 scientific papers indexed by SCI, and 4 academic monographs have been published. 73 inventive patents, 21 of which have been approved. In addition, over 60 research projects were put into application in industry.

The research team is predominantly composed of young, promising and outstanding researchers, three of them having won "The National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars", and two supported by "The 100-Talents Program of CAS", Ninety percent of the researchers hold postgraduate degrees and sixty percent have Ph.D degrees. The team has trained 10 post- doctorates, 44 PhDs and 80 master students. Currently, there are 81 postgraduates in the Lab.

The team is undertaking research projects as follows:

• Large-scale plant and animal cell culture
• Preparation process optimization for sea biological products
• Novel solid-state fermentation and biomass conversion
• Integration of bio-desulfurization, bio-reaction and bio-separation
• Separation and purification for biological products
• Chemical modifications of proteins
• Microsphere and microencapsules for controlled release and separation media