Department Calendar of Events

Increasing concern over fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has led to growing interest in the use of biomass (i.e., plant material and organic waste) for both energy and materials. Around the world, government programs primarily incentivize use of biofuels in the transportation sector. In contrast, few policy drivers exist to encourage the use of biomass for the production of chemicals, an industry which is currently among the largest users of fossil fuel and which is responsible for approximately 7% of global GHG emissions.

To guide efficient resource use, this talk explores certain tradeoffs in the use of biomass for GHG mitigation in a U.S./North American context. In particular, this research addresses key questions, such as 1) are greater GHG reductions achieved when using bio-ethanol as a transportation fuel, or as a chemical feedstock? 2) within the plastics sector, are greater GHG emission reductions achieved by switching to bio-based plastics, or more simply by producing conventional plastics with renewable energy? This talk will also discuss recent work showing 3) how economic/market response can substantially undermine or reverse the GHG benefits from biofuel policies. The results of these studies shed light on the uncertainty present in the life-cycle GHG emissions from bio-based products, and make concrete recommendations to set priorities in the use of biomass for GHG mitigation.
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Professor Daniel Posen is an Assistant Professor in Civil & Mineral Engineering at the University of Toronto. He holds a dual PhD in Engineering & Public Policy and Civil & Environmental Engineering (Carnegie Mellon University, 2016), a Master of Science in Economics (London School of Economics, 2012), a Master of Research in Green Chemistry (Imperial College London, 2010) and a BA in Chemistry (Princeton University, 2009). Dr. Posen’s research uses a mix of technical and economic modeling to supply quantitative, system-level analysis to support of environmental decision making. His expertise spans a range of areas including life cycle assessment and life cycle thinking; setting priorities for greenhouse gas mitigation; evaluating biofuels, bio-based materials & other uses for biomass; electric vehicles and transportation fuels; modeling of fossil fuel and energy markets; public policy & decision support models; and quantifying uncertainty and risk in environmental systems & environmental policy.

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Dr. Chang Liu
Research Scientist,
SCIEX

We describe an innovative Acoustic Ejection Mass Spectrometry (AEMS) platform resulting from the novel integration of acoustic droplet ejection (ADE) technology, an open-port interface (OPI), and electrospray ionization (ESI) MS that creates a transformative system enabling high-speed sampling and label-free analysis. The ADE technology delivers nanoliter droplets in a touchless manner with high speed, precision and accuracy; subsequent sample dilution within the OPI, in concert with the capabilities of modern ESI-MS, eliminates the laborious sample preparation and method development required in current approaches. This AEMS platform is applied to a variety of workflows, including high-throughput (HT) pharmacology screening, label-free in situ enzyme kinetics, in vitro and in vivo adsorption, distribution, metabolism, elimination, pharmacokinetic (PK) and biomarker analysis, compound QC, HT parallel medicinal chemistry, and synthetic biology. The system principles and representative applications of AEMS technology will be discussed in this talk.

 Dr. Chang Liu earned his B.Sc. in Chemistry from Peking University, China, and his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Chang joined SCIEX in 2013 as a scientist where he has been working on the front-end sample preparation and sample introduction technologies, and their applications in high-throughput drug discovery. Dr. Liu has published more than 30 papers and was the organizer of the High-throughput MS session for Pittcon. He was the recipient of Danaher Excellence in Innovation Award, CSC Ryan-Harris Award, and ACS Analytical Chemistry Graduate Fellowship.

Hosted by Professor Krishna Mahadevan

Dr. Syeda Tasneem Towhid, Post-Doctoral Fellow
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Ottawa

The emergence and circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in a population could be detected through surveying the municipal wastewater. This project presents the outcomes of the wastewater surveillance from Ottawa City, selected neighborhoods of Ottawa City and the University of Ottawa. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was done targeting the N1 and N2 genes in the SARS-CoV-2 genome and the SARS-CoV-2 titre was normalized with reference to Pepper Mild Mottle Virus (PMMoV), the endogenous indicator of fecal discharge in sewage.

During the span of this project (April 2020-till date), we have been able to track the increase of the SARS-CoV-2 titre in the wastewater 48 hours before the reporting of the clinical cases and 96 hours before hospitalization from the community.   We have also been able to track the 2nd and 3rd wave from May 2020 to May 2021. We could detect the ɑ-variants from Ottawa municipal sewage since February, 2021 and determine the allelic frequencies of N1, D3 and D3L in wastewater. The sudden increases in wastewater titers around national holidays and festivals indicated periods of susceptibility for SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the communities. To sum it up, wastewater-based surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 is an early detection system that indicates the burden of COVID-19 in the population from both symptomatic and asymptomatic people.

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Syeda Tasneem Towhid finished her Master of Science in Microbiology from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2007 and obtained PhD from Eberhard Karls Universitaet Tuebingen, Germany in 2013 in clinical biology. She was employed as a surveillance officer during the avian influenza epidemic in Bangladesh in 2013 under projects conducted by the International Center of Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. She joined as an assistant professor of Microbiology in Jagannath University, Dhaka, were her team reported the burden of critical drug-resistant bacteria from people with long-term hospitalization. She joined Prof. Robert Delatolla’s group in the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Ottawa in January, 2021, to assay the wastewater titer from First Nations and Vulnerable Communities from Ottawa City. She is also involved in community engagements and discussions to explain the importance of wastewater-based surveillances in controlling epidemics.

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Professor Noémie-Manuelle Dorval Courchesne
Department of Chemical Engineering
McGill University

Protein-based materials represent sustainable and easily customizable alternatives to conventional synthetic polymers. With their biocompatibility, bioactivity and genetic tunability, proteins can be customized for a range of applications. Specifically, protein materials that self-assemble into macromolecular structures and can be produced at large scale are of interest for deployment into wearable devices, tissue scaffolds, and alternatives for commodity materials like plastics, textiles and electronics. Curli fibers produced by Escherichia coli bacteria represent a very promising protein scaffold due to their unique physicochemical properties. Once secreted by bacteria cells, CsgA subunits, the self-assembling repeats of curli fibers, form fibrous structures that can further aggregate and gel into macroscopic materials. Among other functionalities, we have genetically encoded in CsgA the ability to fluoresce, to conduct charges, and to nucleate mineral particles.

In this talk, I will describe advances from our group to engineer curli fibers and confer them with properties relevant for biosensing devices, wearables, and plastic-like (“aquaplastic”) materials. First, I will present methods that we have developed to express and isolate bacterial fiber extracellularly secreted from E. coli cells, and I will show examples of materials (thin films, hydrogels, aerogels, coatings) that we have fabricated with these nanofibers. Then, I will focus on specific applications and proof-of-concept functional devices that we have fabricated. We will discuss bio-functionalized pH-sensing textiles, living adaptive wearable devices, curli-based bioplastics, and protein fibers – polymer composites for conductive biocompatible electrodes.Such devices bring us closer to a bio-based circular economy, and enable novel functions that can only be achieved by biological materials.
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Noémie-Manuelle Dorval Courchesne is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at McGill University since 2017, and a Canada Research Chair in Biologically-Derived Materials since 2021. Previously, she obtained her PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT in 2015 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard until 2017. She was trained as a multidisciplinary scientist and engineer, and has worked in the field of biologically-derived materials for over a decade, focusing on the fabrication and characterization of novel functional materials and devices using recombinant proteins. In her research, she integrates synthetic biology with scalable assembly processes, to fabricate functional materials. Prof. Dorval Courchesne is actively involved in industrially-relevant research, with the goal of introducing biologically-derived technologies in real-world products. Among other projects, she has she has an ongoing collaboration with Lululemon Athletica Inc. She is also part of an NSERC CREATE on Sustainable Electronics and Eco-Design (SEED). In addition, Prof. Dorval Courchesne is a member of several research networks including the Quebec Center for Advanced Materials (QCAM) and the Research Center for High Performance Polymer and Composite Systems (CREPEC). In 2020, she was recognized for her research potential as the recipient of the Christopher Pierre Award for Research Excellence (Early Career) at McGill. She was also recently named one of three “Emerging Leaders in Chemical Engineering” at the Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference (CCEC 2020).

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Join Zoom Meeting
https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/83975927179

Meeting ID: 839 7592 7179
Passcode: 054682
One tap mobile
+17789072071,,83975927179#,,,,*054682# Canada
+14388097799,,83975927179#,,,,*054682# Canada

Dial by your location
+1 778 907 2071 Canada
+1 438 809 7799 Canada
+1 587 328 1099 Canada
+1 613 209 3054 Canada
+1 647 374 4685 Canada
+1 647 558 0588 Canada

If you are an external member, registration is required to receive the Zoom link and passcode. External registration closes at 9am on Mon Oct 18.

Sankar Nair, Georgia Institute for Technology

Host: Prof. Nikolai DeMartini

This lecture will discuss our progress in developing materials-based separation processes for biorefinery applications. The discussion will be centered on the kraft process, which is a high-volume biorefining process that currently yields biopolymer (cellulose), biobased chemical (such as tall oil), and bioenergy (steam and electricity) products. The main byproduct of the process – kraft black liquor – is dewatered by energy-intensive multi-effect evaporation, followed by combustion of the concentrated black liquor to produce steam and electricity. However, black liquor is a potential high-volume feedstock (available at > 1 billion tons/yr in kraft processes) for chemical production because it contains lignin and hydroxy acid fractions.

We will highlight the key role of advanced separation processes in increasing the energy efficiency of the kraft process as well as enabling valorization of stream components. The discussion is placed in the context of three interconnected issues. First, we will illustrate the importance of imagining biorefineries as an interconnected network of conversion and separation processes, and the possibility for materials-based separations to enable new ways of dewatering black liquor as well as valorizing black liquor components such as hydroxy acids and lignin. Second, we will illustrate the differing separation challenges encountered in stream fractionation versus product purification, both of which are critical for biorefineries. Third, we will explore the development and identification of versatile and inexpensive separation materials that can handle complex multicomponent streams in harsh conditions of temperature, pH, and high dissolved solids content.
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Sankar Nair is Professor, Associate Chair, and Simmons Faculty Fellow in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. His research interests are in the science and engineering of nanoporous materials for the development of sustainable chemical processes. His current work focuses on nanoporous membrane and adsorption-based separation systems and processes that can enable new technological paths in biorefining, plastics upcycling, industrial water management, and CO₂ utilization.

View the complete 2021-22 LLE schedule

Questions? Please contact Jennifer Hsu, Manager, External Relations  jennifer.hsu@utoronto.ca.

External members are required to register to receive the link and passcode. Registration now closed!

James Collins, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Host: Prof. Krishna Mahadevan

Synthetic biology is bringing together engineers, physicists and biologists to model, design and construct biological circuits out of proteins, genes and other bits of DNA, and to use these circuits to rewire and reprogram organisms.  These re-engineered organisms are going to change our lives in the coming years, leading to cheaper drugs, rapid diagnostic tests, and synthetic probiotics to treat infections and a range of complex diseases.  In this talk, we highlight recent efforts to create synthetic gene networks and programmable cells, and discuss a variety of synthetic biology applications in biotechnology and biomedicine.
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Professor James Collins is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT, as well as a Member of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology Faculty. He is also a Core Founding Faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is one of the founders of the field of synthetic biology, and his research group is currently focused on using synthetic biology to create next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics. Professor Collins’ patented technologies have been licensed by over 25 biotech, pharma and medical devices companies, and he has co-founded a number of companies, including Synlogic, Senti Biosciences, Sherlock Biosciences and Cellarity, as well as Phare Bio, a non-profit focused on AI-driven antibiotic discovery. He has received numerous awards and honors, including a Rhodes Scholarship and a MacArthur “Genius” Award, and he is an elected member of all three national academies – the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine.

View the complete 2021-22 LLE schedule

Questions? Please contact Jennifer Hsu, Manager, External Relations  jennifer.hsu@utoronto.ca.

BioZone will be hosting Dr. Jens Kastenhofer, from our Dept. of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry, on Thursday, October 28 from 3 pm – 4:30 pm.

Title: Extracellular production of recombinant proteins with E. coli

Abstract

Escherichia coli is among the most favored expression hosts for recombinant proteins. It grows fast on cheap media, is easily genetically manipulated and bears low risk of contamination. However, the product is usually located inside the cell, resulting in a complex and costly purification process. Extracellular production may alleviate this bottleneck but is difficult to achieve due to the nature of the E. coli cell envelope and missing secretory pathways.

Dr. Jens Kastenhofer will present various strategies on how to achieve extracellular production of recombinant proteins with E. coli and demonstrate its benefit for the downstream process, both economical and ecological. Furthermore, the talk will explore approaches to monitoring extracellular production processes with E. coli.

Speaker Bio

Jens Kastenhofer obtained his MSc degree from Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands) and his PhD from TU Wien (Vienna, Austria). His doctoral research was concerned with novel techniques for recombinant protein production in E. coli. He was awarded with the Erwin-Schrödinger-Fellowship from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) for a postdoc position at the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto. In the lab of Prof. D. Grant Allen, he is working towards understanding the response of microalgae to rare earth elements.

To receive the Zoom link and passcode, please contact Sofia Bonilla (sofia.bonillatobar@mail.utoronto.ca) or Olan Raji (olan.raji@utoronto.ca)