UCL DEPARTMENT OF BIOCHEMICAL ENGINEERING

Biochemical Engineering

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Research

The UCL Department of Biochemical Engineering is a world leader in bioprocess research addressing the future needs of the healthcare sector. It is the largest centre in the UK and in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise 75% of Academic Staff were rated as "World Leading" or "Internationally Excellent". Its interdisciplinary Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering coordinates bioprocess research and training collaborations with over a dozen UCL departments, a similar number of external university partners plus over 40 Companies. 

There are typically 80 doctoral and post-doctoral programmes running at any one time of which 60% are collaborative with industry. The Department has outstanding facilities following capital investments worth over £30 million in recent years and has wide access to other resources in UCL which is one of the top four UK research universities. The department’s research grant income currently stands at over £18 million.

The department’s research underpins the bioprocessing of the three most important categories of advanced medicines:

• complex chiral pharmaceuticals synthesized by integrated biocatalysis and chemistry to achieve greater selectivity (see the BiCE programme);
• biopharmaceutical human proteins, genes and vaccines (see the IMRC in Bioprocessing programme and  EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Emergent Macromolecular Therapies);
• regenerative medicines based on human cells and tissue (see the RegenMed programme).

All academic staff in the department collaborate across each of the above fields which share common themes such as micro biochemical engineering, including microfluidics and automation, cell and protein engineering, fermentation and cell culture, downstream processing and formulation. Studies in each of these areas are underpinned by work on intelligent design of experiments and are integrated via whole bioprocess modelling and decisional tools.

If you believe you can contribute to our research excellence, are interested in research training or can complement our activities please contact us. 

Download a booklet of selected UCL Biochemical Engineering publications, 2006-10.

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