The research area of DocSchool BioproEng is located in the field of bioprocess engineering with a focus on biopharmaceutical manufacturing and biorefinery. Research questions regarding the value chain for biopharmaceutical manufacturing beyond drug discovery and the value chain for biorefinery with the focus on the biotechnological refinement and conversion are covered.

From the start, an interdisciplinary approach was pursued by putting the research programme on three pillars representing the fundamental scientific disciplines of bioprocess engineering. The three pillars are required to understand and develop processes for new products or to optimize processes for existing products to improve economics or environmental footprint. As overarching approach process modelling is applied in all fields. 

In particular, following research areas will be addressed:

  • Animal cell technology and microbial cell technology 
  • Fermentation technology, reactor engineering and downstream processing
  • Process control, monitoring and control engineering
  • Statistical modelling, software development and mathematical modeling
  • Biophysics and biomaterials science and soft matter physics
  • Process engineering and computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
  • High throughput screening and high throughput process development
  • Biothermodynamics with cellular, molecular and process thermodynamics
  • Synthetic biology and systems biology
  • Quality by design strategies and scalability of bioprocesses