Kent is the Director of Vaccine Process Development (Upstream) in the Vaccines Process R&D organization at Merck, Westpoint PA. His group has responsibility for cell line and virus selection and process development for pharmaceutical targets for vaccines and oncolytic viruses, and involves culture of pathological organisms and live virus candidates from Phase 1 through 3 and commercial tech transfer. He has been with Merck for 25 years where I have worked in the areas of commercial Technical Operations and Manufacturing for vaccines and therapeutic proteins in the Merck Manufacturing Division, as well as in the area of Clinical Manufacturing & Technology for antibodies, insulin and vaccines as part of Merck Research Laboratories. Kent received his MS and PhD in Biological Engineering from Purdue University, and BS degrees in Biological Engineering and Biochemistry from Texas A&M University.