Academic excellence in specialist manufacturing
Here you will find a brief overview of Scotland’s academic strengths in biomanufacturing. For a full list of key research strengths, visit our research pages.
Heriot Watt University
The Biomanufacturing Research Centre aims to address the fundamental research difficulties encountered by the biotechnology sector during bioprocess development, equipment design and selection, scale-up and process intensification.
The Centre generally focuses on large molecule R&D and Biomanufacturing although there is also experience in small molecule work. Research themes include:
- Flexible biomanufacturing strategies – scale-up and intensification
- Metabolic engineering of bioprocess systems
- Technologies to speed up process development
- Development and validation of novel reactor technology
- Bioprocess enhancement via postgenomics methodology
- Biological systems modelling
Strathclyde University
The Fermentation Centre carries out basic and applied research in the areas of microbial physiology, fermentation technology and applied microbiology, including a number of pharmaceuticals and instrumentation companies. The centre carries out numerous contract research programmes for industry (both local and European), ranging from protein production to trouble shooting exercises.
Key areas of research include
- Biopolymer synthesis
- Novel in situ sensor types (eg solid-state arrays) in fermentation
- Oxidative and carbon dioxide stress in bioreactor cultures
- Novel reactor types
- Physiology of industrial fermentation cultures (Aspergillus,
- Metabolic engineering of precursor pathways to enhance
- antibiotic production
- Pathway engineering to derive novel chemical structures
- Cytochrome P450s and their roles in modifying drug structures
- Post-genomic analysis – especially of commercial antibiotic-
- producing organisms
- The similarities of antibiotic production to toxin production by
- microbial pathogens.
The Centre for Near Infra Red Spectroscopy specialises in the direct application of this technology to the fermentation and bioprocessing industries. It allows rapid analysis of the changing chemical composition within a bioreactor thus allowing rapid analyses during the production of many different fermentation products.
As well as offering a confidential consultancy service to industry, the programme also incorporates a vigorous research campaign including work on improved bioprocess monitoring and the applications of NIRS in monitoring bioprocesses.