Our People - Engineering

Expertise:

• Remediation technologies using chemical and photochemical techniques
• Wastewater and air treatment using advanced oxidation processes
• Infection and pathogen control, including rapid detection methods for bacterial contamination of water, automated UV disinfection systems, ultrasonic disinfection, and novel antimicrobial materials for use in clinical applications
   

Expertise:

• Complex biologics (products derived from living organisms or the organisms themselves)
• Baculovirus expression systems of complex biologics, including glycosylation and myritoylation post-translational modifications
• Cell culture monitoring, modeling and simulation – from metabolomics to on-line spectroscopy
• Monoclonal antibody production and modification, including enhancing monodispersity of the product
   

Expertise:

• Synthetic biology, including utilizing bacteria for production of chemical precurors and biofuels as well as environmental cleanup
• Biomining using iron/sulphur oxidizing bacteria
• Genetic analysis of new bacterial strains for applications in technology and the environment
• Improvements in PCR technology
• Bio-upcycling to transform waste via bacterial biosynthesis, with a focus on succinic acid

Expertise:

• Membrane fouling and optimization of membrane filtration processes
• Diffusion transport in materials (e.g. biomaterials and polymeric films). Diffusing components - material interactions are analyzed through an experimental and theoretical study of model systems
• Enzyme reaction engineering - applications include foods, soil bioremediation, wastewater processes and biomaterial degradation phenomena
• Integrated extraction/purification processes for the recovery of proteins from plant materials (e.g. antifreeze proteins and soy proteins)
   

Expertise:

• Anaerobic membrane bioreactors for wastewater and sludge treatment
• Fate of emerging contaminants in wastewater systems
• Pretreatment of sludges for enhanced digestion
• Advanced sludge digestion processes
• Nutrient recovery from wastewater
• Modelling of wastewater treatment and sludge handling processes
   

Expertise:

• Bioresource engineering and biorefining
• Microalgae, metabolic engineering
• Ionic liquid based separations in biological systems
• Catalysis of wet biomass to biodiesel
• Isoprenoid production

Publications:

Valerie Ward's Publications

Expertise:

• Bio-based production of glycolic acid, allowing for safer and more environmentally conscious cosmetics
• Microbial metabolism, including exploration of new methods to improve yields in synthetic biology
• Metabolic flux, looking especially at proteins, regulators, and pathways involved in microbial metabolism