Ali Ghodba

I received my bachelor's and master's degrees in chemical engineering from Shiraz University and the Sharif University of Technology, respectively. In the Fall of 2022, I had the opportunity to join Professor Luis Ricardez-Sandoval's research team as a Ph.D. student.

In my Ph.D., I am working on developing a dynamic model based on Dynamic Flux Balance (DFB) and its application for monitoring, optimization, and optimal control of mammalian-based bioprocesses. The dynamic metabolic flux model is a modeling paradigm that is gaining popularity in academia and industry since it explicitly considers the metabolic reactions of a given microorganism and can potentially improve process operations. However, the accuracy of DFB is often limited due to a lack of knowledge about the effect of operating conditions such as temperature, pH, and osmolarity on the metabolic response. As the metabolic models cannot typically deal with changes in pH and temperature, these effects will be introduced by empirical correlations between these variables and the parameters in the constraints of the DFB model in this project. This model will calibrate with data provided by Sartorius combined with shake flask data collected at Waterloo. After developing the DFB model, it will be optimized by the Run-to-Run optimization model based on DoE. This project is conducted in collaboration with Sartorius.