Bioprocess ConsistencyCell Culture Media and SupplementsMedia Development
PhD, Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
Neelanjan (Neel) Sengupta is a Staff Scientist in Research and Development for Cell Culture and Cell Therapy at Thermo Fisher Scientific. With more than a decade of experience in bioprocessing, Neel specializes in the development and optimization of cell culture media and supplements to improve process consistency, productivity, and performance. His work focuses on understanding the factors that influence cell culture performance, identifying key drivers of variability, and applying data-driven approaches to support reliable and reproducible bioproduction workflows.
Neel brings a strong scientific foundation in cellular metabolism, metabolic flux analysis, and bioprocess optimization. He earned his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University, where his research explored cellular metabolism through stable isotope labeling, metabolic flux analysis, and kinetic modeling. His research included studies of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell metabolism, examining how culture conditions and nutrient utilization influence cellular processes and bioproduction performance.
His expertise also extends to microbial bioproduction, chemically defined fermentation media, and Escherichia coli (E. coli) systems used in recombinant protein and plasmid DNA manufacturing. Neel has contributed to scientific publications, industry articles, technical presentations, and educational webinars covering media optimization, identification of key performance drivers, predictive modeling, and bioprocess scale-up.
Throughout his career, Neel has focused on translating scientific understanding of media composition and cellular metabolism into practical strategies that improve process robustness and consistency. His work supports the advancement of scalable bioprocessing technologies and more efficient manufacturing workflows for the biopharmaceutical industry.
