noviembre 10, 2009

Fuel from Thin Air? Joule reports direct microbial conversion of CO2 into hydrocarbons; no biomass, no extraction, no refinement








By JIM LANE on November 10, 2009



In Hawaii, at the BIO Pacific Rim Summit, Joule Biotechnologies announced that it has achieved direct microbial conversion of CO2 into hydrocarbons via engineered organisms, powered by solar energy.

Joule’s Helioculture process mixes sunlight and CO2 with highly engineered photo synthetic organisms, which are designed to secrete ethanol, diesel or other products.

However, unlike algae and other current biomass-derived fuels, the Helioculture process does not produce biomass, requires no agricultural feedstock and minimizes land and water use. It is also direct-to-product, so there is no lengthy extraction and/or refinement process.

The breakthrough was made possible by the discovery of unique genes coding for enzymatic mechanisms that enable the direct synthesis of both alkane and olefin molecules – the chemical composition of diesel. Production was achieved at lab scale, with pilot development slated for early 2011.

Because its organisms are being engineered to directly secrete hydrocarbon molecules, Joule will avoid costly steps such as large-scale biomass collection, energy-intensive degradation, or other downstream refinement. In addition, Joule’s process requires just marginal, non-arable land, no crops and no fresh water.


Tomado de





agosto 12, 2009

Vacuna para la diabetes tiene sello local

EL UNIVERSAL

CARACAS, Lunes 06 de julio de 2009

Salud

Una bióloga venezolana participa en el desarrollo del medicamento

Los doctores Shane Grey y la venezolana Eliana Mariño están al frente de la investigación (Cortesía Eliana Mariño)

A finales de abril pasado la publicación científica Diabetes daba cuenta del hallazgo de una vacuna preventiva de la diabetes tipo I-, a cargo de un equipo de científicos del Instituto de Investigación Garvan de Australia, encabezado por el doctor Shane Grey y la bióloga venezolana Eliana Mariño.

Confirmar la nacionalidad de Mariño fue tan emocionante como el constatar la existencia de una nueva esperanza en el combate de la difundida enfermedad, la cual en sus distintos tipos (I, II y gestacional) afecta a más de 180 millones de personas en el planeta, según cifras de la Organización Mundial de la Salud.

Esperanza preventiva
Desde Sidney, Australia, Mariño habló con El Universal sobre los resultados de su proyecto de investigación de doctorado cursado en la Universidad New South Wales, luego de más de tres años de esfuerzos, tutoreados por el doctor en inmunología Shane Grey. El objetivo de la investigación fue utilizar una proteína bloqueadora, llamada BCMA-Fc, para neutralizar la reproducción de linfocitos B dentro del sistema inmunológico, los cuales inducen en los linfocitos T en el páncreas a la destrucción de las células productoras de insulina.

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Explicó la investigadora que la BCMA-Fc es una proteína de fusión que actúa como antagonista o bloqueador de un factor de sobrevivencia para los linfocitos B, llamado de la citokina BAFF: "Al no estar ésta en forma soluble, mueren los linfocitos B", detalló la científica.

Añadió Mariño que en los estudios de laboratorio utilizaron ratones que sufren espontáneamente diabetes de tipo I: "Los roedores fueron tratados con la proteína BCMA-Fc durante seis semanas. Al término de ese lapso, se encontró que el 100% de éstos no presentó diabetes y sobrevivió bajo condiciones saludables por más de un año, en contraste con el grupo control, donde el 80% de los ratones desarrolló la diabetes", afirmó.

Grey y Mariño avanzan en las etapas de estudio clínico de la vacuna, gracias al respaldo gubernamental recibido a través del Centro de Desarrollo de Vacunas para Diabetes (DVDC) de Australia. Calculan de dos a cinco años para aplicarla de forma efectiva dentro del sistema de salud pública. No obstante, Mariño comentó que la vacuna tendrá un alto impacto dentro de la medicina preventiva, especialmente "en personas que aún no han desarrollado la enfermedad autoinmune pero tienen un historial familiar, así como en niños y en pacientes que están en los primeros estadios de la diabetes. Tan sólo en Australia existen 130.000 personas que sufren diabetes de tipo I".

Eliana Mariño ha respondido con el mismo profesionalismo demostrado en sus investigaciones de laboratorio y estudios publicados, notable desempeño que ha reconocido el National Health and Medical Research Council del Gobierno de Australia, al becarla para su doctorado, así como el Instituto de Investigación Médica Garvan y la Fundación Juvenil para la Investigación de la Diabetes.

Resta esperar los resultados de la fase de estudio clínico para la aplicación efectiva de la vacuna de forma masiva en centros de salud australianos y, porqué no, venezolanos. Entretanto compatriotas de esta bióloga formada en las aulas de la Universidad Simón Bolívar, en Sartenejas, celebran la hazaña, convencidos de que dicho medicamento alguna vez pudo llevar el sello "Hecho en Venezuela".

Más investigación y empleo
Eliana Mariño es bióloga egresada con honores de la Universidad Simón Bolívar (1998) y tuvo una destacada participación en el Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas (IVIC). De ambas instituciones reconoce haber recibido "una excelente educación", con la cual pudo obtener una de las más reputadas becas australianas para iniciar su doctorado en Inmunología ya próximo a culminar este año. Es miembro notable en la Sociedad Australiana de Diabetes y la Sociedad Australiana de Inmunología. Vio en Australia su destino profesional ya que la nación, aseguró, cuenta con una "idónea infraestructura para el desarrollo de la ciencia". Y si bien en la aventura la acompaña su esposo, a quien agradece su solidaridad, admite la nostalgia vivir alejada de su familia y amistades.

Basada en su exitosa experiencia, Eliana envió un mensaje a los jóvenes profesionales venezolanos que hoy dirimen irse o no del país y a los entes gubernamentales responsables de impulsar la investigación y la tecnología: "Todo lo que soy se lo debo a mi familia y a mi país, Venezuela. Fomentar el empleo en áreas como la ciencia y otros sectores productivos, son la clave para evitar la fuga de cerebros, garantizando así que todo el esfuerzo educativo y de formación pueda ser aprovechado en nuestro propio país".

Claudia Furiati Páez
ESPECIAL PARA EL UNIVERSAL


junio 24, 2009

Rise of the chemical plant



Date: 19-jun-2009
Author: Jon Evans

With all the fuss over liquid biofuels, the fact that plant biomass can also potentially be converted into a range of industrial chemicals is often forgotten. This is particularly surprising seeing as not only can the same production processes be used to generate liquid biofuels and industrial chemicals, but often the liquid biofuels and industrial chemicals are one and the same.

At the moment, most industrial chemicals, particularly plastics, are generated from petroleum. ‘Right now, about 5% of the world’s supply of petroleum is used to make feedstocks that are synthesised into commodity chemicals,’ says Jonathan Ellman, a chemistry professor at the University of California, Berkeley. ‘If these feedstocks can instead be made from biomass they become renewable and their production will no longer be a detriment to the environment.’

Indeed, a case can be made that converting plant biomass to chemicals may be a more efficient use of limited plant resources than converting them into biofuels. For biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel are in many ways inferior to fossil fuels, whereas the chemicals produced from plant biomass should be direct replacements for petroleum-derived chemicals.

Furthermore, in response to the volatile oil price of the past few years, chemical companies are taking a growing interest in chemicals derived from plant biomass. In a report released at the end of last year, the UK market analyst firm Frost & Sullivan predicted that the global market for biorenewable chemicals would increase from $1.63 billion in 2008 to over $5 billion by 2015.

Ethanol, as well as being the world’s favourite biofuel, is already an industrial chemical, acting as a feedstock in the production of various other organic chemicals, such as diethyl ether. But scientists are working on ways to transform plant biomass into other chemical compounds that can act as both a liquid biofuel and a chemical feedstock. One of the most promising of these compounds is 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), which can act as a feedstock in the production of polyesters, including the polyethylene terephthalate used to make most plastic bottles, and synthetic diesel.

Over the past few years, a number of research groups have come up with various ways to produce HMF from glucose and fructose, and more recently from cellulose (see Biofuels of tomorrow). In 2007, scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, led by Conrad Zhang, reported using the metal catalyst chromium chloride dissolved in an ionic liquid to convert glucose to HMF.

Ionic liquids are also able to break down cellulose and so Zhang and his colleagues wondered whether a variation of this method could produce HMF directly from cellulose. They managed to come up with such a method by simply dissolving small amounts of two metal catalysts – chromium chloride and copper chloride – into the ionic liquid, with this method able to convert 57% of the sugar content in cellulose into HMF in a single step. They reported this advance in a recent paper in Applied Catalysis A and also at a meeting of the North American Catalysis Society (NACS) at the beginning of June.

Other scientists are discovering that the major by-product of biodiesel production, glycerol, can also be converted into a range of useful chemicals. For instance, scientists at the US operations of the German chemical company Sud-Chemie have developed catalytic processes for converting glycerol into a wide range of industrial chemicals, including acetone and propanol. They also presented their work at the recent NACS meeting.

Most recently, Ellman and his colleagues at Berkeley developed an efficient way to convert glycerol into allyl alcohol, which is a major feedstock used in the production of pesticides, drugs and various polymers and organic chemicals. To do this, they simply mixed glycerol with formic acid, which gives bee venom its sting, at around 235°C.

Ordinarily, this reaction is not very productive, because it also produces a lot of unwanted compounds. But Ellman and his colleagues found that they could eliminate these unwanted compounds by passing a stream of nitrogen through the reaction mixture, improving the allyl alcohol yield by 80%.

Does all this indicate that plant biomass may soon have more to offer to the chemical sector than to the transport sector?



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junio 18, 2009

Descripción del curso

Código: 2270170003670
Asignatura: Ingeniería Bioquímica
Unidades Créditos: 4


Este curso abarca aspectos de bioquímica, biología celular y molecular, química orgánica e inorgánica, y tiene como base estructural los principios fundamentales de la Ingeniería Química.

De una manera simple, podría decirse que la Ingeniería Bioquímica envuelve el uso de organismos vivos o parte de ellos en el desarrollo de nuevos procesos y en la producción de metabolitos y compuestos químicos. Una definición mas práctica y amplia es la aplicación de los principios de la ingeniería para diseñar, desarrollar y analizar procesos usando biocatalizadores.

Los bioprocesos son una parte esencial en muchas industrias químicas, alimenticias y farmacéuticas. Las operaciones en bioprocesos hacen uso de células microbiales, animales y vegetales y de componentes de estas células, tales como enzimas, proteínas, etc., para manufacturar nuevos productos y también para destruir peligrosos desechos. El uso de microorganismos y materiales biológicos en la producción de alimentos fermentados tiene sus orígenes en la antigüedad. Desde entonces, los bioprocesos se han desarrollado para un gran rango de productos comerciales, que van desde materiales poco costosos tales como los provenientes de la industria del alcohol y solventes orgánicos, hasta compuestos químicos especialmente costosos como antibióticos, vacunas, proteínas terapéuticas y otros fármacos.

El objetivo de este curso es proporcionar al estudiante una apreciación global del fascinante campo de biotecnología y el papel del profesional, sea Ingeniero, Biologo o Químico en estas nuevas tecnologías. El estudiante tendrá la oportunidad de:

  • Demostrar cómo usar las ecuaciones y parámetros importantes de diseño en la práctica de la Ingeniería Bioquímica, incluyendo discusiones de tópicos tales como cinética enzimática y biocatálisis, crecimiento microbial y formación de producto, diseño de bioreactores, transporte y recuperación de productos.
  • Explicar y aplicar las técnicas y conceptos básicos de la biología molecular en la producción de productos derivados microbiológicamente.
  • Aplicar los principios básicos de ingeniería química, tales como balance de materiales, cinética de reacciones, fenómenos de transporte y procesos de separación en la comprensión del cultivo celular o problemas biológicos.
  • Entender los mecanismos de cómo una droga intercepta una enfermedad, por ejemplo, interfiriendo con la trascripción de los genes de las células o inhibiendo las enzimas asociadas con la enfermedad
  • Familiarizarse con las etapas del proceso de fabricación de drogas y fármacos
  • Familiarizarse con las características de ciertos tipos de cultivos que permiten obtener productos específicos.
  • Familiarizarse con los tipos de productos producidos por cultivo celular o microbiano, por ejemplo, proteínas, antibióticos, enzimas.
  • Caracterizar y optimizar el crecimiento de un cultivo celular y la producción de un producto deseado
  • Seleccionar el método de cultivo apropiado y las condiciones de operación la producción de un determinado producto por cultivo celular
  • Seleccionar el tipo de bioreactor apropiado y las condiciones de operación la producción de un determinado producto por cultivo celular
  • Considerar las etapas del proceso de recuperación y purificación de un determinado producto obtenido por cultivo celular



junio 17, 2009

TEMA 1: Que es la Ingeniería Bioquímica?

La Ingeniería Bioquímica consiste en la aplicación de los principios de Ingeniería al diseño, desarrollo y analisis de procesos usando BIOCATALIZADORES, bien sea para la obtención de productos deseados o para eliminar sustancias no deseadas o peligrosas.





junio 14, 2009

Chemurgy

Better living through chemurgy
June 26th 2008 / NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition




Efforts to replace oil-based chemicals with renewable alternatives are taking off


FORTY years ago Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate” was given a famous piece of career advice:“Just one word…plastics.” It was appropriate at the time, given that the 1960s were a golden age of petrochemical innovation. Oil was cheap and seemed limitless. Since then, scientists have kept on coming up with wondrous new products made from petroleum that helped to ensure, in the words of one corporate slogan, better living through chemistry. Even so, someone offering advice to today’s promising graduates might invoke a different, uglier word: chemurgy.


This term, coined in the 1930s, refers to a branch of applied chemistry that turns agricultural feedstocks into industrial and consumer products. It had several successes early in the 20th century. Cellulose was used to make everything from paint brushes to the film on which motion pictures were captured. George Washington Carver, an American scientist, developed hundreds of ways to convert peanuts, sweet potatoes and other crops into glue, soaps, paints, dyes and other industrial products. In the 1930s Henry Ford started using parts made from agricultural materials, and even built an all-soy car. But the outbreak of the second world war and the shift to wartime production halted his experiment. After the war, low oil prices and breakthroughs in petrochemical technologies ensured the dominance of petroleum-based plastics and chemicals.


But now chemurgy is back with a vengeance, in the shape of modern industrial biotechnology. Advances in bioengineering, environmental worries, high oil prices and new ways to improve the performance of oil-based products using biotechnology have led to a revival of interest in using agricultural feedstocks to make plastics, paints, textile fibres and other industrial products that now come from oil.


This form of biotechnology has not attracted as much attention as biotech drugs, genetically modified organisms or biofuels, but it has been quietly growing for years. BASF, a German chemical giant, estimates that bio-based products account for some €300m ($470m) of sales in such things as “chiral intermediates” (which give the kick to its pesticides). The sale of industrial enzymes by Novozymes, a Danish firm, brings in over €950m a year, about a third of it from enzymes for improving laundry detergents. Jens Riese of McKinsey, a consultancy, reckons industrial biotech’s global sales will soar to $100 billion by 2011—by which time sales of biofuels will have reached only $72 billion.


Will this boom really prove to be more sustainable than the first, ill-fated blossoming of chemurgy? One potential problem is that oil-based polymers are very good at what they do. Early bioplastics melted too easily, or proved unable to keep soft drinks fizzy when they were made into bottles. Pat Gruber, a green-chemistry guru who helped start NatureWorks (a pioneering biopolymers firm) says customers are sometimes too risk-averse to retrain staff or modify equipment to accept a new biopolymer—even if it is cheaper or better.


It seems likely that oil-based products will be around for a long time in some applications. But the big advances in oil-based polymers happened decades ago, whereas the number of patents granted for industrial biotechnology now exceeds 20,000 per year. Such is the pace of innovation, says Tjerk de Ruiter, chief executive of Genencor, a industrial-biotech firm that is now a division of Denmark’s Danisco, that processes that once took five years now take just one. And Steen Riisgaard, the boss of Novozymes, insists that new technologies can indeed push old ones out of the way, provided they are clearly superior (and not just greener). Brewers raced to adopt Novozymes’ novel enzymes, for example, in order to cash in on the Atkins Diet craze with “low carb” beers.


A second potential obstacle is that incumbent companies will quash the fledgling new technologies. But concern about oil’s reliability as a feedstock means that even oil-dependent incumbents are interested in alternatives. Oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and BP see novel bioproducts not as threats but as useful tools for blending into, and possibly extending, remaining oil reserves. And chemicals giants such as Dow and DuPont are also big fans of novel industrial biotechnologies. Chad Holliday, DuPont’s boss, is sure that Sorona, his firm’s new biofibre, will be a multi-billion dollar product and “the next nylon”. DuPont expects its sales of industrial biotechnology products to grow by 16-18% a year, to reach $1 billion by 2012.


Perhaps the biggest worry is that today’s industrial-biotech boom is an artefact of the soaring price of oil. If the oil price plunged and stayed low, the boom would surely turn to bust. Short of outright collapse, however, even a sharp price drop need not burst the biotech bubble. Mr Riese has scrutinised the economics of sugar and oil—the chief rival feedstocks—and concludes that the “bio-route” will be cheaper even at an oil price of $50-60 a barrel. Brent Erickson of BIO, an industry lobby, argues that “this was happening long before the oil-price spike—$100 oil is just gravy.” Industry bosses agree, noting that the flurry of projects now approaching commercial use were deemed viable and initiated a few years ago, when the oil price was closer to $40 a barrel.


For proof that industrial biotech is ready for the big time, look to Brazil. The country already has a large and efficient industry producing ethanol fuel from sugar cane. Now rival consortia are rushing to build plants to turn sugar cane into bioethylene. This is striking. Unlike many other industrial biotech efforts which target niche markets, this is an assault on the $114 billion market for ethylene, the most widely produced organic compound of all.


Erin O’Driscoll of Dow, a chemical giant now investing in Brazilian bioethylene, says the firm is confident the technology is ready for commercialisation. The chief reason for such optimism is that industrial biotechnology is better and cheaper than it was back in the heyday of chemurgy. Dow has even come up with a material made from soyabean oil that it plans to sell to carmakers to replace oil-based foam. Ford and his friend Carver would be proud.


Illustration by David Simonds
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