UCL DEPARTMENT OF BIOCHEMICAL ENGINEERING

Biochemical Engineering

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Departmental resources

All areas of the Department have been refurbished in recent years and now offer outstanding facilities for research, education and training. The department’s resources are available for studies at all levels from first year undergraduate to those working in the international bioindustry who take modules as part of the MBI® Training programme. The bioprocessing facilities are complemented by a range of advanced analytical devices for the detailed characterisation of chemical pharmaceuticals, biopharmaceuticals and human cells for therapy. Experiences obtained from these world class facilities makes graduates and researchers from the department much sought after.

Central to the department’s whole bioprocess theme are the large scale bioprocessing facilities available in the Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering (ACBE). This new building was the result of a £20 million investment throughout the 1990s with funding from industry, government and various foundations. The ACBE houses pilot scale bioprocess equipment, from fermentation through downstream processing to formulation, that enable studies at a scale close to those used in the bioindustry. Studies in the ACBE underpin the large scale verification of findings from the IMRC and BiCE research programmes.

In 2002 the Centre for Micro Biochemical Engineering was constructed within the main UCL engineering building as a result of a £4.5 million investment from competitively funded research grants and a Gatsby Foundation award. These new laboratory and computing suites allow research and training on the integration of rapid small-scale experimental studies with data mining and computer modelling. A range of robotic systems are available to facilitate the rapid engineering of cells and proteins and the high speed acquisition of bioprocess information at the microwell scale. In this way research can progress from initial experimentation to detailed bioprocess design with predictions of large scale performance being checked against process scale runs in the ACBE.

A series of further investments since 2005 totalling nearly £2 million, including a competitively won Royal Society-Wolfson award, helped establish a Regenerative Medicine Bioprocessing (RegenMed) Unit and related laboratories for the automated analysis of complex cells and tissues. These facilities underpin studies on the growth of human cells and tissue outside the body to be used in repair being undertaken as part of the RegenMed research programme. Most recently a further £2 million investment in a Bioprocess Microfluidics facility will enable studies on the parallel acquisition of bioprocess data on precious biological materials, such as new medicines or human cells for therapy, at an even smaller scale.

Across UCL there are over 70 departments and research institutes the majority undertaking internationally leading research. Many of these are already involved in collaborative projects and provide additional resources for research and training. The UCL library and information systems provide on-line access to a wealth of information resources and advanced computing facilities. The British Library, one of the world's greatest repositories of information, is just a few minutes' walk away.

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