Dr. Freitag obtained her Diploma and doctoral degree (Ph.D.) in Chemistry from the University of Hannover, Germany. After her PostDoc in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Yale University, CT, USA, she returned to Hannover to start her own research group in downstream processing and biotechnical analytics. After gaining the venia legendi (Habilitation) in biochemical engineering, she moved to Switzerland (EPFL, Lausanne) first as Assistant later as Associate Professor in Chemical Biotechnology. Since 2003 she holds the chair for Process Biotechnology in the faculty of Engineering Science at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. During her career, Dr. Freitag has published over 250 scientific publications and edited three books. She was cofounder of a company in the area of biomaterials and has served in over ten scientific advisory boards both in academia and industry. Her current research foci include: biopharmaceuticals (including biosimilars), mammalian cell culture, tissue engineering, technical microbiology, bioelectrochemistry, bioenergy.