Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center

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97-31725 ZABORSKY This award initiates the Engineering Research Center for Marine Bioproducts Engineering. The lead institution is the University of Hawaii at Manoa with the University of California, Berkeley as a core partner institution. The award funds the first five years of effort under a new cooperative agreement, with a potential duration of ten years. The vision of the ERC for Marine Bioproducts Engineering is to build the foundations of engineering research and education for a 21st century marine biotechnology business devoted to high-value products destined for the chemical, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmetic, food, feed, and life sciences industries. The ERC brings together two disparate topics, marine sciences and process engineering, in order to address apreviously under-utilized bioproducts resource, the world's'oceans. The Center builds on well-established expertise in marine sciences at the University of Hawaii and in bioprocessing at the University of California, Berkeley, the open ocean collection resources at the University of Hawaii, and the Center's partnership with the nascent marine biotechnology industry. The world's oceans represent a great, and largely untapped, resource of marine organisms containing products or the raw materials for products that are of use in many different industries. The Center's research spans from exploration of the oceans for new product leads, through the development of production processes, such as bioreactors and separation technologies, to the formulation and stability of newly discovered marine bioproducts through combinatorial chemistry and other techniques. The research program involves chemists, oceanographers, biologists, bioengineers and chemical engineers. By introducing marine concepts into undergraduate and graduate courses taught at both institutions, the Center will produce marine biotechnology engineers who have theoretical and practical engineering expertise and a working knowledge of marine and life scie nces disciplines and practices. The Center will also provide training for professional marine bioengineers, will outreach to K-12 school children and the general public through the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and will partner with community colleges. The Center will collaborate with industrial partners from Hawaii, the U.S. Mainland and the Pacific Rim. It also will have support from banks and venture capital firms that fund the nascent marine biotechnology industry in Hawaii. This award is the outcome of the entry of the ERC's preproposal in the FY 1997-98 Engineering Research Centers Competition under the ERC Program Announcement, NSF 97-5.