Abstract
The talk will review the development of biochemical engineering from its origins in industrial fermentation to the current interface with systems biology. From a chemical engineering perspective, we have recently moved from a century, in which the process industries were dominated by chemistry, by catalysts and by finite, non-renewable, resources. The century that we are now growing into will by contrast, surely, be dominated by biotechnology, by cells and by sustainable, renewable, resources. It is almost 100 years since, at the University of Manchester, Chaim Weizmann laboured in his laboratory to perfect the acetone-butanol-ethanol fermentation as the first example of large scale Industrial Biotechnology. We now look to Industrial Biotechnology to supply a wealth of different products and it is technically feasible to produce the full range of functional molecules required to meet our chemical, fuel and material needs. The ‘biorefinery’ now exists as a concept, set to challenge the dominance of the petro-refinery in supplying our everyday needs from feedstocks that we can rely on being available well beyond the limited supplies of petroleum. Our challenge is to ‘engineer’ these biorefinery processes to compete economically. To this end, our appreciation of the role that the chemical engineer can play in the development of biochemical engineering fundamentals is vital.
Biography
Colin Webb graduated in Chemical Engineering from Aston University with a 1st class honours degree and PhD and is a Chartered Scientist as well as a Chartered Engineer. He has been Director of the Satake Centre for Grain Process Engineering, at the University of Manchester, UK, since it was founded in 1994. In 1999, he was honoured as the UK’s first Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Food Science and Technology. From 2000 – 2007 he was Head of Chemical Engineering at the University of Manchester. Colin has been an external advisor to a large number of Universities worldwide and is currently International Scientific Advisor to Kobe University, Japan as well as a Visiting Professor at both the University of Oviedo and the University of Cádiz in Spain. His publications include 10 books, more than 240 research papers and five patents. Colin has been Editor-in-chief of Elsevier’s Biochemical Engineering Journal since its launch in 1998. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) and is Chair of Accreditation for the IChemE. His research is largely directed towards the sustainable bioconversion of agricultural raw materials and the development of the biorefinery concept. This research recently won the 2011 IChemE Bioprocessing Award.