Course leader
Henk Noorman was trained as Chemical Engineer from Groningen University (NL). He obtained a PhD in Bioprocess Technology from Delft University of Technology (NL, 1991), on microbal systems modeling. He became a post-doc fellow in a Nordic research consortium, and co-ordinated a fermentation scale-up project among academic groups in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. He then joined Gist-brocades and DSM in Delft (NL) and worked on fermentation development and implementation projects, mainly in the area of antibiotics and bio-based products. He also has been project manager for innovation projects, and received the DSM R&D Award 2010. Henk Noorman is currently working as Senior Science Fellow Bioprocess Technology in the DSM Biotechnology Center and involved in numerous projects in Industrial Biotechnology, Food Specialties, Anti-Infectives, and the Corporate Research Program. In addition he is honorary professor at Technical University Delft working on Bioprocess Design and Integration. Teaching activities include courses in Delft, Wageningen (NL), Brac (Croatia) and Shanghai (China).
Course board
Prof. Sef Heijnen
After his MSc studies in Chemical Engineering, Sef Heijnen worked at DSM (then: Gist Brocades) for 15 years and in this period he also completed his PhD thesis in bioprocess technology at Delft University of Technology. In 1988, he became full professor and group leader in Cell Systems Engineering within the Department of Biotechnology of Delft University of Technology. He has an impressive track record: he is (co-) author of over 400 scientific publications, has supervised nearly 60 PhD students and is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He is recipient of several science and education awards. His research interests are (1) metabolic engineering and systems biology applied to industrial microbial processes using Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Penicillium chrysogenum and Escherichia coli, (2) metabolome measurement and 13C-tracer analysis in steady state and dynamic conditions, and (3) thermodynamic and kinetic modelling of metabolism, fermentation design and scale-up and scale down of industrial processes. Prof. Heijnen teaches a wide variety of courses, and was elected at TU Delft’s 2003 ‘Leermeester’ (best lecturer).
Prof. Ruud Weusthuis
After studying Biology in Groningen (1984-1989) R. A. Weusthuis obtained his PhD in Microbial Biotechnology at the Delft University of Technology (1989-1994). He joined Wageningen University and Research and headed the Bioconversion group (2004-2008). In 2007 he started working at the Wageningen University, and is active as Associate Professor Microbial Biotechnology. He focuses on the design of breakthrough technologies for the production of chemicals by microorganisms, integrating reactor and cell engineering.
Guest lecturers
Jason Crater
Jason obtained his BS in Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, graduating with highest honors in 2010. He has 7 years of industrial experience, the last 6 years with Genomatica where he is a Sr. Scale-up Engineer. Jason’s core expertise is in fermentation process development and scale-up. Most recently, he was the R&D leader for all process scale-up and technology transfer of Genomatica’s 1,4-butanediol (BDO) process to a licensee plant in Bottrighe, Italy. This plant, owned and operated by Novamont, successfully started up in late 2016. It represents the first example of large-scale fermentation production of an established bulk petrochemical. Jason is also a 2015 graduate of the Advanced Course Bioprocess Design. Using learnings from the course, he collaborated with professors at TU Delft to develop a ‘black-box’ fermentation model of Genomatica’s 1,4-BDO process in large-scale fermentors. The model was used to design scale-down experiments to assess organism and process performance ahead of scale-up, and it demonstrated excellent predictability of fermentation performance at scale.
Dr. Amit T. Deshmukh
Amit studied Chemical Engineering from 1996 to 2000 at the University of Pune, India. In 2005, he traveled to Germany to pursue MSc. in Chemical Engineering with specialization in Bio-chemical engineering at Technische Universität Dortmund. From 2008-2012, he did his PhD in the group of Prof. J.J. (Sef) Heijnen at the Delft University of Technology, Delft. During his PhD, he worked on elucidating in-vivo enzyme kinetics in P.chrysogenum. For last four years, he working as a lead scientist at DSM Biotechnology Center, Delft, carrying out R&D activities for industrial scale fermentation. His work involves scale up/down of fermentation processes, specifically for production of penicillin and cephalosporin antibiotics. He is also part of teaching activities that include courses in Delft (NL) and Shanghai (China).”
Prof. Michel Eppink
Synthon Biopharmaceuticals BV, Nijmegen and Bioprocess Engineering & Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands
Connor Galleher
Genomatica Inc., San Diego, CA, USA
Dr. Dirk Martens
Bioprocess Engineering, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands
Prof. René Wijffels
Bioprocess Engineering, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands
Dr. Liang Wu
DSM Biotechnology Centre, Delft, the Netherlands
