engineering

Juan Asenjo

Juan Asenjo is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Juan Asenjo rather than just read about it. In short: Professor Juan A. Asenjo (born October 7, 1949) is a Chilean chemical engineer who specialises in biotechnology.

Key takeaways

Juan Asenjo belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Juan Asenjo to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Juan Asenjo from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Professor Juan A. Asenjo (born October 7, 1949) is a Chilean chemical engineer who specialises in biotechnology. He currently serves as the director of the Centre for Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the University of Chile and is the President of the Chilean Academy of Science.

Education and career Asenjo studied for his first degree in chemical engineering at the University of Chile, graduating in 1974. He then moved to the University of Leeds, UK to complete an MSc, followed by a PhD at University College London supervised by Peter Dunnill and M. D. Lilly. He moved back to Chile for one year before being appointed Assistant Professor in biochemical engineering at Columbia University, New York where he remained until 1986. In 1987 he moved to the University of Reading to become a Reader in biochemical engineering and the director of the biochemical engineering laboratory. Then in 1995 he returned to Chile and established the Centre for Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the University of Chile which he continues to direct.

Research Asenjo has made scientific contributions where the fields of mathematics and computer science merge with biology and biotechnology. This has included developing models of enzyme systems for the lysis of microbial cells and for predicting the behaviour of proteins in aqueous two-phase systems. He has been involved in the purification of several proteins including alpha amylase, tissue plasminogen activator, monoclonal antibodies and virus-like particles. Recently his group have begun working in the fields of protein engineering, metabolic engineering and functional genomics. One specific area of research is an attempt to produce detergents which work at low temperatures based on trypsin enzymes originally isolated from Antarctic krill. The Santiago Times reported in 2013 that Asenjo's group was to begin testing a vaccine for alcoholism on mice and hoped to begin pre-clinical trials in humans later that year. In November 2013 the vaccine was in stage 2 clinical trials. The vaccine acts to inhibit acetaldehyde dehydrogenase causing people to experience a hangover shortly after consuming alcohol. He has called for Chile to invest more in scientific research and development, which would allow the country to add value to its exports, for example by exporting lithium batteries rather than raw lithium.

Recognition He was elected as a member of the Chilean Academy of Science in 1999 and was appointed as its Vice President in 2004 and President in 2010. In 2004 he was awarded the Chilean National Prize for Applied Sciences and Technologies, with the jury noting his research was of a high impact and quality, as demonstrated by over 100 publications, several patents and having supervised over 40 doctoral students. In 2018, Asenjo was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to protein separations for the biotechnology industry and to biotechnology research, development, and entrepreneurship in Chile.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Juan Asenjo

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Juan Asenjo claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Juan Asenjo before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Juan Asenjo ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Juan Asenjo

In research: Juan Asenjo appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Juan Asenjo in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Juan Asenjo is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1949 births, 20th-century Chilean engineers, 21st-century Chilean engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Juan Asenjo outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Juan Asenjo in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Juan Asenjo means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Juan Asenjo out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Juan Asenjo in simple terms?

Professor Juan A. Asenjo (born October 7, 1949) is a Chilean chemical engineer who specialises in biotechnology.

Why does Juan Asenjo matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Juan Asenjo?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Juan Asenjo.