Research of the Bioprocess Engineering Group
Our research area encompasses everything between substrate (eg. light, CO2, sugar, lignocellulose) and product (food, pharmaceuticals, fuels, platform chemicals). That includes pretreatment of substrates, bioconversion and downstream processing, all from lab to pilot scale. Drivers are high quality products and high efficiency conversions with high volumetric productivity.
Research themes
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Biomanufacturing and Digital Twins
The growth of the circular bioeconomy, or the commercial and industrial application of sustainable bio-based products and services, has long been an ambition for many governments, public and private stakeholders. The benefits of that economic system are manifold, especially for energy use reduction, increased innovation and sustainability.
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Biorefinery
Our aim is to develop mild fractionation and separation processes that enable us to obtain a plethora of valuable biomolecules from biomass (e.g. microalgae, seaweed and agri-food residues). By taking cell disentanglement, mild extraction/separations, process design and product functionality into account we are developing multi-product biorefinery concepts with a positive economic value and ecological impact.
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Animal Cell Biotechnology
Our aim is to develop production processes for biopharmaceuticals and other bioproducts based on a proper understanding of the biology of the cell and of its interactions with the bioreactor environment. We focus on the production of pharmaceutical proteins and vaccines by CHO cells and insect cells and the production of secondary metabolites and bioproducts by sponges.
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Microalgal Biotechnology
Photosynthetic microorganisms use a direct route to convert inorganic carbon into functional molecules while employing sunlight. Our mission is to develop a commercial and sustainable production chain for food, feed, chemistry and energy from microalgae and cyanobacteria. We integrate biological and engineering studies of cellular processes, work on strain improvement, cultivation optimization and scale-up. We bridge fundamental research to applications in outdoor pilot facilities (www.AlgaePARC.com) and use techno-economic models to assess and guide our research program.
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Microbial Biotechnology
In microorganisms thousands of chemical reactions can run at the same time. Mankind has used this ability to produce several goods, first in the form of food, as wine and cheese, later also in the form of pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals. Due to current environmental crises like global warming, acidification because of ammonia emissions, deforestation, etc, there is a strong need to reduce the consumption of fossil resources and instead produce bulk chemicals and fuels in a sustainable way.
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Cellular Agriculture
Our Cellular Agriculture team brings together a diverse team of bioprocess engineers, biologists, biomedical engineers, among others. By leveraging our multidisciplinary expertise, we aim to tackle the major scientific and technological challenges in the cellag space, aiming at the development efficient, scalable, and cost-effective processes for cellular agriculture products.