Martha Rook Honored with a Silver Stevie® Women in Business Award for Best New Product of the Year

BILLERICA, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

EMD Millipore, the Life Science division of Merck KGaA of Darmstadt, Germany announced today that employee Martha Rook has received a Silver Stevie Award for Women in Business in the category of Best New Product for her use of the Mobius CellReady Bioreactor to develop stem-cell scale-up production. Martha led her team to use an innovative method to develop large quantities of stem cells which are necessary for the development of therapeutic processes, applications and clinical trials.

This award recognizes women who lead innovation in their industries, said Andrew Bulpin, Head of EMD Millipores Process Solutions Business Unit. We are delighted to have Martha as part of our organization, and we congratulate her for receiving this prestigious recognition. Her leadership and innovative work in scale-up stem cell production brings great value not only to EMD Millipore, but to our customers and the life sciences industry as well.

Stem cells have the potential to yield consistent sources of differentiated cell types which can be leveraged for therapeutic purposes and for facilitating and improving a number of drug discovery and development processes. Industrial production of stem cells on a larger scale is essential for driving forward research and clinical trials.

Typically, large scale production of stem cells is achieved using 2D tissue culture vessels which can be an expensive and time consuming process for researchers. Under Marthas leadership, the Upstream & Sensor Technologies group in EMD Millipores Process Solutions Business Unit took an innovative approach to this industry challenge. The team used an established EMD Millipore product- the Mobius CellReady 3L bioreactor- and combined it with a microcarrier scaffold for suspension expansion of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) to study their potential for stem cell scale-up production. The stem cells produced were identical to those produced with the traditional method, but required less cost, time, and effort. Expansion of hMSCs in stirred tank bioreactors using microcarriers is the first step to establishing a scalable, single use and efficient production process.

As a result of Rooks research, EMD Millipore is currently involved in collaborating with smaller biotechnology companies and large clinical academic centers customers that are using the Mobius CellReady 3L Bioreactor for large-scale production of stem cells.

The Stevie American Business Awards are the worlds premier awards for women executives, entrepreneurs and the organizations they run. The New Product & Service Category recognizes new products and services introduced to the marketplace since July 1, 2011 created by or for women. Judged by a panel of over 200 executive from around the world, finalists are recognized with Gold, Silver or Bronze award for their achievements. Recipients were honored at the 2012 Stevie Awards for Women in Business awards dinner and in New York City on Friday, November 9.

Martha received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from MIT and B.S. in Chemistry from Texas A&M University. Martha pursued post-doctoral studies in neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. She has worked in clinical diagnostics at Variagenics, a pharmacogenomics company, and Quest Diagnostics as a Genomics and Esoteric Testing Specialist before joining EMD Millipore in 2005. Martha is currently Head of Upstream and Sensor Technologies within the Process Solutions business unit at EMD Millipore.

About EMD Millipore

EMD Millipore is the Life Science division of Merck KGaA of Germany and offers a broad range of innovative, performance products, services and business relationships that enable our customers' success in research, development and production of biotech and pharmaceutical drug therapies. Through dedicated collaboration on new scientific and engineering insights, and as one of the top three R&D investors in the Life Science Tools industry, EMD Millipore serves as a strategic partner to customers and helps advance the promise of life science.

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Martha Rook Honored with a Silver Stevie® Women in Business Award for Best New Product of the Year