Biomimetic Hydrogels: Design Strategies and Transformative Applications in Biomedicine
Effects of Metal Ion Exposure on Cell Behaviour
Abstract
This seminar will introduce CirkArena, and the role of global research engagement in advancing circular economy innovation. Drawing on MMV and CirkArena’s work in circular economy, waste valorization, sustainable materials and advanced production systems, Madeline Leahy will discuss how international partnerships among researchers, universities, research organizations, and industry can help translate ideas into collaborative projects with practical impact. The seminar will highlight strategies for building trusted partnerships, expanding research networks and connecting technical innovation wit global sustainability goals.
Abstract
The past decade has witnessed the tremendous power of systems and synthetic biology in the creation of genetic parts, devices, and systems, which helps understand complex biological systems. However, its potential for real-world applications has not been fully exploited. One of its promising applications is the construction of programmable cells that integrate multiple environmental signals and implement synthetic control over biological processes. My research interests are focused on developing microbes and microbiota that can process multiple input signals and generate user-defined outputs. Specifically, I aim to build genetic programs to control various bacterial processes such as gene expression, chemical reactions, and evolution. I will present published and unpublished results of my selected research projects by discussing the potential and challenges of systems and synthetic biology to address global problems, including plastic and agricultural waste issues, non-invasive diagnostics and disease treatment using smart probiotics and microbiota engineering, sustainable bioproduction, and biocontainment of genetically engineered microbes.
Biomass plays a key role in capturing and storing solar energy on Earth. It is estimated that up to 8,500 exjoules (×10¹⁸ joules) of solar energy are captured and stored globally each year through biomass, which is about 10-15 times the current global energy consumption (580 exajoules). This presentation provides an overview of the availability of biomass and organic solid waste resources globally, as well as in Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, and introduces hydrothermal technologies and their applications in the transformation of biomass and organic solid waste. During these transformations, water is used as a reaction medium, solvent, reactant, or catalyst. Hydrothermal technology is especially suitable for the resource utilization of high-moisture biomass and biowaste (such as food waste, sewage sludge, manure slurry, microalgae, etc.), as it eliminates the costly dehydration/drying process (which is essential for other thermochemical processes like combustion, pyrolysis, and gasification). This presentation summarizes Professor Xu's team's past research achievements in various hydrothermal technology development, including methanol aqueous phase reforming (APR) for hydrogen production, biomass hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) to produce water-charcoal, hydrothermal liquefaction of biomass waste (HTL) to produce biocrude oil, and supercritical water gasification (SCWG) of aqueous biomass (sugars) to produce green hydrogen. Professor Xu will also share his experience in scaling HTL technology to 6 kg/h and 100 kg/h, as well as ongoing commercialization efforts, including building pilot units with a daily throughput of 10 tons and demonstration units with a daily throughput of 100 tons.
Microfluidic - Assisted Engineering of Structured Liquid-State Soft Materials and Hierarchical Cryogel Architectures
Abstract
The simulation of flows using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has advanced considerably in recent decades and is now an essential tool across industries ranging from aerospace design to process engineering. Although CFD is relatively mature for single-phase flows, multiphase flows (such as particle-laden flows) and multiphysics flows (such as those including microwaves or ultrasound) remain significantly more challenging to simulate, in part due to their intrinsic multiscale nature and conflicting numerical need.
In the recent years, high-order methods have gained considerable momentum in aeronautics, in part due to their significantly lower dispersion and dissipation, but also for their higher arithmetic intensity (FLOPS-to-byte ratio) which suits current hardware capabilities. However, these methods remain seldomly used in chemical-engineering applications, in part due to their multiphase and multiphysics nature.
Abstract:
For 30 years the undergraduate laboratory in the Chemical Engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University has employed a variety of pedagogies. In this talk we will explore our transition to student-led open-ended projects in our senior laboratory course. Furthermore, we will focus on implementing self-directed learning within this construct.
Abstract: Ingo Krossing steers a synthetic inorganic / organometallic chemistry group that bridges to computational, physical, materials and electrochemistry. His core expertise starts with weakly coordinating anions (WCAs) and was extended over the years to basic and applied Ionic Systems, i.e. compounds and materials (systems) in which ions determine their properties. The Ionic Systems under investigation range from very basic reactive cation salts,[1-5] to more applied systems like electrolytes for batteries and battery materials. To investigate the electrochemical relations between such Ionic Systems, solvent independent unified redox and acidity scales – applicable to all phases – were developed.[6]
Enhancing Polyglycolic Acid Production in E.coli