My bioprocessing process development experience includes hands-on development of biosynthesis, biotransformation and biodegradation processes. Between my process development and manufacturing career, I have worked with gram positive and negative bacteria, yeast and filamentous fungi. In addition, I have had exposure to an even wider range of bioprocessing and biorefining technologies through my manufacturing plant design experience.
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Experience
My first fermentation process development project was a fuel ethanol pilot plant that we built on the campus of the Behrend College of Penn State when I was an undergraduate. This was the early eighties when the price of oil was high and the federal government was giving out small grants to numerous researchers to develop alternative fuels. Our particular project was using waste starch from a local potato chip manufacturer as the feedstock. I drove my family’s station wagon to the manufacturing plant and we loaded it up with 5-gallon buckets of starch slurry. These we took to the campus cafeteria kitchen and used their big cooking kettles to do the liquefaction. Next, we loaded the liquefied starch back into buckets and took it down the hill to where we had built a pilot plant in a decommissioned wastewater treatment plant. There we fermented the starch in 55-gallon drums and distilled it in a small still.
My first job out of college continued this work in the Energy Division of the Natural Resources Research Institute of the University of Minnesota, where I built out my first laboratory focused on fuel ethanol process development. From there, I went on to graduate school in chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota, where my master’s thesis work studied recombinant protein expression in E. coli at slow growth rates. Following graduation, I went to work for Bio-Technical Resources where I developed a biotransformation process to make meta-hydroxyphenylacetylene.
After that, I moved into fermentation manufacturing before returning to process development at the startup company Energy BioSystems. There, I was part of a team working to develop biodesulfurization processes to remove thiophenic sulfur from hydrocarbon fuels. This work included two-liquid phase fermentations (aqueous and hydrocarbon), development of methods to separate the phases after the biotransformation, and development of recovery and purification processes for the sulfinate/sulfonate co-products produced by the process. Often, the manufacturing plant design projects I have worked on have also included some process development components.
Below are links to some of my process development projects that provide more details about each project.
Projects
Hydrocarbon Fuels Biodesulfurization Process
meta-Hydroxyphenylacetylene Biotransformation Process
Novel Amino Acid Biosynthetic Pathway Literature Review
Recombinant Protein Expression in E. coli at Slow Growth Rates
Cyanobacteria Photosynthetic Sugar Pod Development
Fuel Ethanol from Waste Starches