Category: People

Four Erasmus Mundus Students of the MSc. Biological and Chemical Engineering for a Sustainable Bio-economy joined our group until June. Ariyan Amirifar, Belén Fernández de Caleya Ramiro, George William Ssendagala and José Gustavo Varona García will develop a metabolically engineered yeast strain of R. toruloides that will use lignocellulosic biomass (Brewer’s Spent Grain – BSG) as a substrate to produce monoterpenes. The produced terpenes shall be used (instead of hops) during fermentation to produce the distinctive beer flavor. This project will ultimately contribute to circularity in the brewing industry by supporting the valorization of BSG to create a useful product that can in turn be used by the same brewing industry.

Two new students have joined the group. Supported by Dora Plus scholarship both PhD students from Brazil, Luísa Czamanski and Julianno Sabedotti De Biaggi, will work 6 and 3 months on R. toruloides, respectively. Luísa will focus on engineering R. toruloides strains capable of producing terpenes, which have a wide range of applications such as precursors of renewable fuels. Julianno will focus on R. toruloides carotenoid metabolism by expressing the enzyme phytoene desaturase from multiple phyla of Fungi in Escherichia coli and analysing its activity on different substrates in vitro.

We welcome five new interns from Bioceb programme who decided, after finishing their semester in TalTech, to extend their visit and work in the group.

From April 1st, we have two new members joining Food Tech and Bioengineering lab.

Srdjan Gavrilovic will be joining as a Research Scientist working on metabolic engineering and the development of synthetic biology tools.

Andreia Axelrud will join us as a Research Engineer while having a strong background in quality control and bioprocess optimization.

Welcome to our team!