Bioengineering Research Activities in Tsinghua University for Sustainable Development of

Green Energy and Chemicals,and Clean Environment

Xin-Hui XING (邢新会)Department of Chemical Engineering

Tsinghua University07-07-2011

2011 ASPIRE Forum at KAISTJuly 7, 2011

Global Opportunities and Challenges

• Resources• Energy• Environment• Health• Sustainability• Trust• …….

Global innovation

Close international relationship for education and research

Global Shortage in Water Resource in 2025

Biotechnology

• Medical Biotechnology

• Agricultural Biotechnology

• Industrial Biotechnology

• Environmental Biotechnology

BiocatalysisBiomass

•Biofuels

•Electricity

•Heat

•Chemicals

Biorefinery Will Replace Petrorefinery

•Plants•Animal wastes•Agricultural wastes•Organic garbage•Wastewater

－Sugar path－Lignin path－Organic path－Pretreatment－Unit operation

Industrial Biotechnology

Feedstocks For Industrial Biotech • Crops • Energy plants (starch, oils, etc) • Low-grade (LG) biomass (agricultural, forestry,

animal husbandry, organic wastes, etc.) • Other resources （microalgae, etc）

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Renewable, Low eco-impact, processing feasibility

Biorefinery for Renewable Biomass

B. Kamm,M. Kamm. Principles of biorefineries.Applied microbiology and biotechnology, 2004, 64: 137-145

Advanced Biotechnology, Biological and Bioprocess Engineering

Bio-related Areas in THU

•School of Life Sciences•Medical School

•Department of Chemical Engineering (DCE)Biological and Bioprocess Engineering

•Department of Engineering Physics•Department of Material Sciences and Engineering•Department of Environmental Science and Engineering•Department of Mechanics •Research Institute of Nuclear and New Energy

Biological and Bioprocess Engineering

Evolution and protein engineering

Nano-Biotechnology

Biocatalysis engineering

Cell culture engineering

Biomedical engineering

Bioseparation engineering

Environmental bioengineeringProfessors: 5

Associate professors: 7

Assistant professor: 2

Biocatalyst Technology

Bioprocess Engineering

Applied Biotechnology

•Founded in 1984

1. Evolution and Protein Engineering ◆ Evolution and protein engineering aim to create high performancemicrobial cell factory, understand the structure-function relationship ofproteins, and to engineer cells/proteins with improved and multifunctionalproperties for use in industry. Bioinformatics, genetic engineering, rationaldesign, directed evolution and microbial evolution engineering are playingkey roles in this direction.

Site-directed mutagenesis

Directed evolutionBioinformatics

Nano-structured and Multifunctional Biocatalysts

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底物产物荧光实时可视化定量追踪

生产监控 亲和纯化 生物催化

MBPGFP

酶

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底物底物产物产物荧光实时可视化定量追踪

生产监控 亲和纯化 生物催化

MBPGFP

酶

Realtime monitoring of enzyme production

Monitoring of Enzyme affinity separation

Monitoring of Enzyme reaction

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底物产物荧光实时可视化定量追踪

生产监控 亲和纯化 生物催化

MBPGFP

酶

固定载体

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底物底物产物产物荧光实时可视化定量追踪

生产监控 亲和纯化 生物催化

MBPGFP

酶

固定载体

固定载体

底物产物荧光实时可视化定量追踪

生产监控 亲和纯化 生物催化

MBPGFP

酶

固定载体

固定载体

底物底物产物产物荧光实时可视化定量追踪

生产监控 亲和纯化 生物催化

MBPGFP

酶

Realtime monitoring of enzyme production

Monitoring of Enzyme affinity separation

Monitoring of Enzyme reaction

Fusion Protein Technology for Design of GFP-labeling Proteins

•Linker engineering•Direction

ComputationDesign of fusion strategy

•Linker engineering•Direction

ComputationDesign of fusion strategy

2. Nano-Biotechnology

• Integration of nanotechnology and biotechnology• Creation of nano-crystals by aid of biofunctions• Control of biofunctions by novel nano materials

Phage display Nano-crystals Applications

3. Biocatalysis Engineering • Application of enzymes or whole cells in industrial

processes to produce commodity chemicals, fine chemicals,pharmaceuticals, novel biomaterials, and bioenergychemicals such as biodiesel, bio-hydrogen and bio-alcohol,by metabolic engineering, systems biology and syntheticbiology.

Fluorescent industrialMicrobes

Pilot fermentationActive center

• Technology for enzymatic biodiesel production with long enzyme activity stability

• Process integration for production biodiesel and 1,3-propandiol (PDO) • Technology transfer and industrialization

(20,000 tons biodiesel/year in China)by Prof. Dehua Liu

Industrialization of Enzymatic Biodiesel Production

CH2-OOC-R1

CH-OOC-R2

CH2-OOC-R3

R1-COOR'

R2-COOR'

R3-COOR'

+ +lipase

glycerolmethanol

BioHythane Production from Biomass

废弃生物质

能源化应用预处理

氢发酵 甲烷发酵

生态肥料

气体净化

BioHythane（H2+CH4）

原料池

新村镇

分布式能源供给

核心：1保留-2种群-3系统

闭合能源循环

4. Cell Culture Engineering • Plant cell culture and animal cell culture• Useful metabolite productions by culturing cells from

conventional Chinese medicinal herbs, and correspondingmetabolism research.

Hairy roots in bioreactor

Taxol productionCrocin production

5. Biopharmaceutical Engineering• Drug controlled/sustained delivery, antibody engineering and

enzyme engineering for pharmaceutical processing andproduction.

Drug controlled delivery

6. Bioseparation Engineering • Recovery and purification of bioactive products from plant and

microbial cells, large scale biocatalysis process and naturalresources as well, including organic acids, antibiotics, proteins,biodegradable materials and polypeptides.

PS/PMMA dimentional phase separation in supercritical CO2

Hollow-fiber membrane system

7. Environmental Bioengineering • Focusing on biotechnology applications for diverse wastewater

treatments by integration of aerobic and anaerobic microbes,oil or salt contaminated soil remediation, hazardous chemicalsdegradation and corresponding fundamental research.

Wastewater treatment technology for sludge reduction and low energy consumption Bioremediation technology for polluted soils

Thank You！