Section: Contracts and Grants with Industry

BioInh

Participants : Jérôme Harmand, Alain Rapaport, Ahlem Saddoud.

The project BioInh (Modelling and optimization of bio-conversion of plant materials in inhomogeneous media) proposed by the UMR IATE (Ingénierie des Agropolymères et Technologies Emergentes, Montpellier) and the team MERE is funded by the Agropolis foundation (Montpellier) for two years since 2009. The project aims at studying inhomogeneity effects in enzymatic reactors with the help of models of cascade of reactors. The presence of inhibition in the growth function may lead to instabilities and drive the system toward several possible equilibria, one of them only being interesting in terms of yield and productivity. Experiments are planned for the coming year, and the final objective is to derive control strategies for driving the system toward the best equilibrium. The project hires A. Saddoud in a postdoctoral position for two years, and R. Lortie (NRC Biotechnology Research Institute, Montréal, Québec) as a regular visitor.