Role of Bioprocess Engineer

Many countries have dominated the discovery phase of biology and laid the groundwork for commercialization of biotechnology. Biotechnology-derived products already affect human health, nutrition, and environmental improvement and will grow to provide new products and employment in new industries. Worldwide markets for biotechnology-derived products are projected to grow to at least $50 billion per year within the next 10 years, and our global trading partners are concentrating their resources on translating the discoveries of biology into economically viable products through bioprocess engineering.

Bioprocess Technology is the sub-discipline within Biotechnology that combines living matter, in the form of organisms or enzymes, with nutrients under specific optimal conditions to make a desired product. It is responsible for translating discoveries of life sciences into practical and industrial products, processes and techniques that can serve the needs of society. Bioprocess Technology is thus the backbone of the biotechnology industry that translates the research and development to the industries. The stages involved in Bioprocess includes the preparation stage of raw materials, substrates and media, the conversion state, biocatalysts, downstream processing, volume production, purification and final product processing. Graduates from this program will have the knowledge and skills to understand the fundamental bioprocess research and relate it to the relevant industries.

The role of bioprocess engineering in the successful commercialization of biotechnology is not fully understood by our national government, industrial, and academic leadership. That is in large measure because first-generation biopharmaceutical products have been successfully produced with only secondary concern for costs of manufacturing. However, products now under development will require novel techniques and more efficient and economical processes. Hence, our participation in the expanding bioproducts market will necessitate an expanded role of bioprocess engineering. This is all the more important because bioprocess engineering could have a profound effect on the existing fermentation industry.

Bioprocess engineers will be employed in applying the new biology to producing smaller molecules and specialty bioproducts. These are in a category where the challenge is to apply bioprocessing to obtain value-added products and to engineer large-scale, integrated processes that use agricultural and forestry-based materials and other renewable resources. Bioproducts for use in food production and in foods (animal health-care biologics, biological plant-growth promoters and pesticides, nutritional supplements, and food additives) present large-tonnage product opportunities that can be tapped in the coming decade, provided that suitably efficient and economical manufacturing facilities can be designed and built. Such capabilities do not exist, and their creation is a major challenge for bioprocess engineering. The use of biomass for the production of industrial chemicals and of liquid and gaseous fuels represents a major hope for reducing U.S. dependence on imported hydrocarbons. The processing of renewable resources

must have high national priority in the coming decade, so that the necessary know-how and production infrastructure for its practical implementation can be developed. Bioprocessing in space presents unique opportunities, particularly in bioregenerative life support and as a research platform for the study of new types of manufacturing processes.

Most of the applications and potential applications of bioprocessing related to renewable and nonrenewable resources involve large-scale operations and products of relatively low value. The costs of processing have to be low, and the decision to use bioprocessing for such raw materials must be made with care. Precedents for successful (commercial) large-scale bioprocess engineered processes include the corn wet-milling industry, the fuel-alcohol industry, the wastewater-treatment industry, the acetone-butanol fermentation industry (stopped in the West in 1955, but still practiced in China), and fermentation industry that manufactures amino acids and other organic acids.

In petroleum industry bioprocess engineer also can take a role, especially on oil recovery process. It has been estimated that more than 300 billion barrels of U.S. oil cannot be recovered by conventional technology and might be accessible through enhanced oil production. That volume is 2.5 times as large as the amount of oil produced by the United States since 1983. The actual enhanced oil recovery has been low—no greater than 5% of total U.S. production, even though various Department of Energy incentives have been available. Other countries, such as Canada, have projected that by the year 2010 one-third of its oil recovery will use enhanced techniques. In recent years, advanced oil-drilling techniques have enhanced overall yield, and it is expected that these techniques, not microorganisms, will satisfy oil companies' needs for greater yield in the short term.

Although most of the major oil companies have in-house staff investigating and perfecting microbial-enhanced oil recovery (MEOR), the methods' low cost might appeal more to small-field operators, who have already pumped and sold the easy-to-get component of their fields. MEOR is not predictable; like the use of microorganisms for hazardous-waste remediation, the use of microorganisms for oil recovery is site-specific. Individual oil deposits have unique characteristics that affect the ability of microorganisms to mobilize and displace oil. An understanding of the microbial ecology of petroleum reservoirs is a prerequisite to the development of any MEOR process, whether microbial or not, because an inappropriate design might accelerate the detrimental activities of microorganisms (e.g., corrosion, reservoir souring, and microbial degradation of crude oil). Basic environmental-biotechnology research under way for contaminated soil and groundwater will provide much needed information to those working on MEOR, who face several serious challenges.

The committee concurs with the OTA report (OTA, 1991) that immediate opportunities for bioprocessing, particularly those which would use genetically engineered microorganisms, exist. The impact of bioprocessing on environmental remediation and industrial waste control could be tremendous over the longer term. The technical aspects of environmental issues are

broad and complex and the technical elements of the opportunities ill-defined, and the committee recommends that a study be carried out to set priorities.

Silvester Widyo W./0906640910Bioprocess Technology