Univeritè Catholique de Louvain (UCLOUVAINouvain)
Unit of Bioengeneering
Capacities: UCLOUVAIN, Catholic University of Louvain, harbours 12 departments and 4000 students finish with a diploma per year. The Unit of Bioengineering (GEBI) is part of the Department of Applied Chemistry and Bioindustries of the Faculty of Bioengineering, Agronomy and the Environment (UCLOUVAIN). The Unit has currently a staff of 2 teaching professors, 1 postdoctoral fellow, 7 PhD students and 8 master students.
Research at GEBI is focused on microbial and cellular engineering, bioreactor design, modelling and control, and environmental biotechnology. The Unit is particularly interested in bioconversions catalysed by mixed microbial communities under (an)aerobic conditions, with applications in environmental pollution control, bioenergy conversion, and value-added product formation. The biological breakdown of xenobiotics is studied from the single cell level (molecular characterisation of the degradation pathway(s)) to the field (in situ bioremediation). One raising area of research deals with the monitoring and characterisation of microbial diversity and functions in soils (polluted and unpolluted) with the use of various molecular and eco-genomic techniques. The GEBI research infrastructure includes aerobic and anaerobic reactors (up to 140 L), HPLC, FPLC, GC (and access to GC-MS), basic molecular biology equipment (for PCR, RT-PCR, DGGE, 1D-proteomics), spectrophotometry, and epifluorescence microscopy.
Scientific staff at UGent involved in training
The key scientific staff involved at UCLOUVAIN are Spiros Agathos who is the Head of the Unit and Isabelle George who is postdoctoral fellow. Spiros Agathos has a longstanding experience with the biotransformation of xenobiotics (organochlorines, aromatics like PAHs and nitroaromatics, and industrial dyes) by bacterial and fungal communities, and with bioreactor design, monitoring and modelling. Isabelle George is an expert in molecular microbial ecology, who is particularly interested in characterizing the composition and functions of mixed microbial communities in soils, sludges, and/or as biofilms. A small metagenomic activity was recently initiated in the laboratory at the UCLOUVAIN, and the GOOWDATER ITN project is a great opportunity to expand it. The foreseen extent of involvement in percent of the full time employment of the UCLOUVAIN researchers in the ITN is 10% each.