Optimization of Continuous Biomanufacturing Processes for the production of added-value chemicals.

This multidisciplinary project aims to develop a novel technology, exploiting the concept of continuous fermentation for the bioproduction of added-value products. Examples are succinic acid, one of the top value-added chemicals produced from biomass and bioplastics (PHA, PHB). An exciting combination of both advanced experimental and computational studies is envisaged: Experimental efforts will include the exploration of cell immobilisation technologies, which is a key element for successful continuous fermentation and bioreactor design and operation. Our previous work on batch and fed-batch fermentation-based production of succinic acid and PHB will provide effective starting points for this project. Computational work will involve the construction of reactor simulators in conjunction with advanced optimisation techniques in order to obtain optimal bioreactor configurations addressing important issues such as (on-line) biomass/product separation and recycle. The best continuous bioreactor design will be selected through an efficient combination of experiments and computations. Studies of the metabolic pathways of the system using system biology approaches will be utilised to appropriately optimally adapt the microorganism for the selected experimental system. We expect this project to create significant benefits not only towards bioprocess improvement, but also in the general areas of industrial biotechnology and of integrated biorefineries.
See http://www.manchester.ac.uk/research/k.theodoropoulos/publications for a list of relevant publications.

Funding is available based on the academic track-record of applicants, and evidence of research potential.
Competition for funds is expected to be extremely high.

Candidates should ideally have an MSc and a 1st class BSc in Chemical Engineering or a related field such as Biotechnology, Chemistry, Physical Chemistry etc. and should have computational modelling experience and/or relevant experimental experience.
Successful candidates will be enrolled in the 3-year Ph.D. program of the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science.