We are a research group with focus on bioprocess engineering. Initially, in 2019, without a laboratory, this group could only afford discussions about metabolic engineering. As collaborations with other institutes started, in 2020, our students were able to perform some practical activities, accomplishing in 2021 rabies virus-like-particle (Rabies VLP) production and monitoring in a bench-scale bioreactor. As the pandemic started and concerns about vaccines began to grow, the study of this same platform, VLP vaccines, was continued however related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In 2023, with a FAPESP project approval, our laboratory at EACH USP was finally built, allowing experiments performed at this group university and carried on more projects in parallel.
Thus, with organization and commitment since our beginning, we have aimed to provide society with scientific achievements, from promoting discussions over multiple topics in bioprocess engineering to research and publishing our findings. At the moment we have five main research lines:
- bioprocess statistical optimization;
- bioprocess monitoring through spectroscopy techniques;
- cell metabolism and oxygen transfer rates monitoring in bioreactor;
- phenomenological modeling of bioprocess;
- and purification of pharmaceutical proteins.
And for these purposes, our laboratory research group counts on partnerships with institutes and multiple companies, also scholarships to help our students to focus on study and research. As a result, since the not so far beginning of this group’s laboratory activities, several papers have been published.