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.
Microbial bioconversion technologies can play a key role in this development. However, bulk chemicals and fuels have low added values, and the current microbial bioconversion technologies cannot yet compete with most existing petrochemical processes. There is one notable exception: the production of bioethanol as fuel by yeasts. Breakthroughs are therefore required to drastically reduce costs of other biotechnological processes.
Expertises
- Bioreactor design
- Fermentation technology
- (Quantitative) Physiology
- Metabolic engineering
- Genetic modification
Techniques
We combine different techniques and analyses in our research. These include amongst others; bioreactor cultivations, enzyme assays, fluorescence-based technologies, metabolic modelling, (CRISPR-Cas based) genetic modifications, evolutionary engineering and other analytical techniques.
Our mission
To create breakthrough technology for the sustainable and competitive production of (bulk) chemicals and fuels by microorganisms.
Strategy
On our route to this mission, we focus on a number of aspects to develop new biotechnological processes combining our expertise and to enforce a breakthrough.
