Bioreactors for bioprocessing research

提议者最近与新罕布什尔州的达特茅斯学院和一个工业合作伙伴合作开展了一项重大研究工作，目的是开发具有成本效益的纤维素生物质生物转化技术，如用于乙醇生产的草和木材。目前有三名瑞尔森的研究生参与了该项目，至少还有两名学生将在2008年9月加入该团队。目前的项目涉及到与新罕布什尔州达特茅斯学院的李林德博士和一个工业赞助商的密切合作。一个学生花了2007年夏天在达特茅斯学院，很明显，我们需要在瑞尔森进行恒化器实验，除了我们的生态学和显微镜的合作贡献;除其他外，以促进实验室间的比较，并避免延误评估我们的微生物财团。因此，我们的合作伙伴为我们的实验室提供了两个新的恒化器生物反应器，需要分别在2008年9月和2009年9月之前归还。本呈件要求支持购买这些反应堆的替代品。来自瑞尔森大学至少两名同事和来自多伦多大学至少一名合作者的学生也将从这个系统中受益。虽然我们实验室对设备的主要需求是进行纤维素分解厌氧微生物群落的动力学研究（至少需要两个恒化器才能进行重复实验），但我们经常需要这样的设备进行基础研究，以比较生物膜（附着细胞）表型与其厌氧对应物。后者是我们小组中另外两名研究生的研究重点，而另一名学生将在2008年加入他们，作为最近资助的NSERC战略项目的一部分，与麦克马斯特大学和加拿大环境部的合作伙伴合作。 我们的部门经历了显着的增长，在环境科学，与两个最近（2006/2007）和一个未来（2008）在环境微生物学任命;与分子科学研究生课程在2006年秋季推出一起，有一个恒化器生物反应器的需求不断增长。

The proponent has recently embarked on a major research effort in collaboration with Dartmouth College, NH and an industrial partner with the objective to develop cost effective bioconversion of cellulosic biomass such as grass and wood for ethanol production. There are currently three Ryerson-based graduate students involved in the project and at least two more will join the team in September 2008. The current project involves a strong collaboration with Dr. Lee Lynd at Dartmouth College, NH and an industrial sponsor. One student spent the summer of 2007 at Dartmouth College, and it became clear that we need to perform chemostat experiments at Ryerson in addition to our ecology and microscopy contribution to the collaboration; among others to facilitate inter-laboratory comparisons and to avoid delays in evaluating our microbial consortia. Our partners therefore made two new chemostat bioreactors available for our laboratory, which need to be returned by September 2008 and 2009, respectively. This submission requests support to purchase replacements for these reactors. Students from at least two colleagues at Ryerson and at least one collaborator from University of Toronto will also benefit from this system. Although the primary need for the equipment in our laboratory is to conduct kinetic studies of cellulolytic anaerobic microbial communities (at least two chemostats are needed to allow replicate experiments), we regularly need such equipment for our fundamental studies to compare the biofilm (attached cells) phenotype with their planktonic counterparts. The latter is the research focus of two other graduate students in our group, while another student will join them in 2008 as part of a recently-funded NSERC Strategic project in partnership with collaborators at McMaster University and Environment Canada.   Our department experienced notable growth in environmental sciences, with two recent (2006/2007) and one future (2008) appointment in environmental microbiology; together with the Molecular Sciences graduate program introduced in fall 2006 there is a growing need for chemostat bioreactors.