Russell Sage Professor of Chemical Engineering
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Education:
Ph.D., Engineering, University of California at Irvine, 1972
M.S., Engineering, University of California at Irvine, 1969
B.S., Chemical Engineering, University of Cape Town in South Africa, 1963

Career Highlights:
A member of the Rensselaer chemical engineering faculty since 1978, Belfort is the Russell Sage Professor of Chemical Engineering. Among the many distinguished awards he has received include election to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE); he also earned the American Chemical Society’s award and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ award in Separation Science and Technology in 1995 and 2000, respectively. Belfort was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 1994. He is co-founder and former president of the North American Membrane Society and has been named a Fellow of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science twice.

Belfort is editor or coeditor of three books and has written more than 160 published reviewed papers and book chapters. He serves on the editorial board of several international journals and is the international editor of the Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan. He has written or co-written five patents, including one for producing low-protein adhesive surfaces, and one for a new filter design that self-cleans during filtration. A native of South Africa, Belfort lectures widely in both academic and industrial settings, and is an active consultant in the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Research Areas:
Belfort is a world-renowned authority on bioseparations and the behavior of biological molecules at solid interfaces. His Biomolecular Separations Research Group conducts research on fundamental and applied aspects of membrane and affinity separations processes in biochemical engineering. One focus of the group is to recover desirable proteins from biologically derived solutions and suspensions. Researchers are evaluating methods such as fusion affinity adsorption, pressure-driven membrane processes, and expanded-bed adsorption. In addition, Belfort and his research group conduct research on fundamental problems of interfacial engineering and science. This includes intermolecular force measurements between biologically derived molecules, adhesion of proteins on solid substrates, effects of roughness on adhesion and contact angle measurements, and the formation of amyloid fibrils at interfaces.

Group members are measuring interactions of proteins with substrates, especially polymeric surfaces such as synthetic membranes, to obtain adhesive forces. They also are determining how surfaces of different chemistry influence protein secondary structure. A comprehensive research program on modifying polymeric surfaces using wet chemistry, low temperature plasma, and photo-induced graft polymerization also is being pursued to obtain surfaces that exhibit specific desirable properties, such as low protein adhesion and high specific binding. In addition, for water treatment applications, his team members are modifying membrane filtration surfaces that exhibit reduced natural organic matter fouling.

Selected Publications:
Miao, J., Wu, W., Spielmann, T., Belfort, M., Derbyshire V. and Belfort G. (2005) Single-step affinity purification of toxic and non-toxic proteins on a fluidics platform, Lab. Chip., 2004, 5, 248-253.

Sethuraman, A, and Belfort G. (2005) Protein structural perturbation and aggregation on homogeneous surfaces, Biophysical J. 88, 1322-1333.

Baruah G. L.,Venkitheswaran, A., and Belfort. G. (2005) Global Model for Optimizing Crossflow Microfiltration and Ultrafiltration Processes: A New Predictive and Design Tool, Biotechnol Prog, 21, 1013-1025

Kilduff J. E., Mattaraj S., Zhou, M., Belfort, G (2005) Kinetics of membrane flux decline: The role of natural colloids and mitigation via membrane surface modification, J. Nanoparticle Res. 7, 525-544.

Baruah, G. L., Nayak, A., Winkelman E. and Belfort, G. (2006) Purification of monoclonal antibodies derived from transgenic goat milk by ultrafiltration, Biotechnol. Bioengr., 93, (4), 747-754.

Baruah, G. L., Nayak, A, and Belfort, G. (2006) Scale-up from laboratory microfiltration to a ceramic pilot plant: Design and Performance, J. Membrane Sci., 274, (1-2), 56-63.

Contact Information:
Georges Belfort
(518) 276-6948
belfog@rpi.edu
http://www.rpi.edu/~belfog