Biological manufacturing methods and feedstocks with low carbon footprints can create sustainable solutions that address challenges of food security, food safety, and health while adding value to agriculture. Our research addresses the engineering fundamentals for sustainable manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, foods, and bioproducts derived from agricultural and cellulosic renewable resources. We strive to educate our students to be the best "and do their best" in the design, analysis, prediction, modeling, control and optimization of processes that capitalize on the unique biophysical behavior of biological molecules, as well as the products from which they are derived. Our goal is to develop platforms that enable unique products to be manufactured in new ways.
Faculty
R.P. Kingsly Ambrose
Professor, Agricultural & Biological Engineering and University Faculty Scholar
Research Areas
Applying particle technology concepts to the handling and processing of grain, food, feed, and other particulate materials. Research areas include powder flow; particle, powder characterization; agglomeration; dust explosion; modeling and simulation. https://engineering.purdue.edu/FFP
Research Focus: REsearch on ABE
Teresa Carvajal
Agricultural & Biological Engineering
Research Areas
Surface Materials Science Exploring and exploiting physical and chemical factors governing particulate interactions to relationships between surface-structure and process-performance of food and pharmaceutical powders and composites
Research Focus: REsearch on ABE
Kari Clase
Professor, Agricultural & Biological Engineering
Research Areas
Biotechnology Innovation and Regulatory Science Center leader, developing global programs to ensure sustainable access to medicines in Africa and advance discovery in manufacturing technology, quality of medicines, and rare disease research.
Research Focus: REsearch on ABE
Meng Deng
Associate Professor, Agricultural & Biological Engineering
Research Areas
Biomaterials, Regenerative Engineering and Drug Delivery. Rational design of cell-instructive polymeric biomaterials and development of bioengineered systems for musculoskeletal tissue regeneration and controlled delivery of therapeutics. http://www.regenerativematter.com/index.html
Research Focus: REsearch on ABE
Abigail Engelberth
Associate Professor, Agricultural & Biological Engineering, Environmental & Ecological Engineering
Research Areas
Bioseparations to recover valuable co-products from underutilized biological resources and the design of the recovery processes to assess potential economic feasibility of a given co-product. https://engineering.purdue.edu/ERG
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Klein Ileleji
Professor, Extension Engineer
Research Areas
Grain post-harvest handling & storage, powder technology and logistics with focus on post-harvest operations, storage and feedstock characterization for grains, oilseeds, bioprocessing coproducts and lignocellulosic biomass. https://engineering.purdue.edu/~biomass/index.html
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Michael Ladisch
Distinguished Professor of Agricultural & Biological Engineering; Director, Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering
Research Areas
Bioseparations & Mass Transfer: liquid chromatography, membrane separations, microfluidics, injectable biologics. Pathogen Detection. Biocatalysis: enzymes, cellulose pretreatment, fermentation, process engineering. https://www.purdue.edu/lorre/
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Nathan Mosier
Department Head, Agricultural & Biological Engineering; Indiana Soybean Board Professor in Soybean Utilization; Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering
Research Areas
Bioprocess engineering for transforming carbohydrates (starch and cellulose) and lipids (vegetable oils) to biofuels and value-added chemicals. Development of novel catalysts, reaction engineering, reactor design, and process integration. https://www.purdue.edu/lorre/
Research Focus: REsearch on ABE
Ganesan Narsimhan
Professor, Agricultural & Biological Engineering
Research Areas
Colloidal and Interfacial Phenomena. Pore formation by antimicrobial peptides in lipid bilayers, molecular dynamics simulation of protein conformation, oxidative stability in food emulsions, pasting behavior of starch.
Research Focus: REsearch on ABE
Martin Okos
Professor, Agricultural & Biological Engineering/Biochemistry, and Food Process Engineering
Research Areas
Optimization of food, pharmaceutical and bio processes using experimental and computer-aided research. Measurement of rheological, transport and kinetic properties, Design of biological fermentation, extrusion, dehydration and separation systems,
Research Focus: REsearch on ABE
Karthik Sankaranarayanan
Assistant Professor, Agricultural & Biological Engineering
Research Areas
Applied data science for enzymology. We develop computational models for enzyme reaction chemistry to make experimentally testable predictions for addressing manufacturing challenges associated with complex synthetic molecules that are important to the society (e.g., pharmaceutical agents, agrochemicals, and food flavoring). https://www.ksankargroup.com/
Shweta Singh
Associate Professor, Agricultural & Biological Engineering and Ecological & Environmental Engineering
Research Areas
Systems Science & Engineering for Sustainability: Industrial Ecology, Circular Economy, Process Systems Models, Machine Learning, Industrial-Natural Coupled Systems, Life Cycle Analysis, Macroeconomic Models, Urban Systems, Dynamics, Complex Systems https://sites.google.com/site/shwetasinghlab/home
Research Focus: REsearch on ABE
