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You will find in this page some developments about my education at the INSA of Toulouse, about my internships and my first position as engineer.

Studying at the INSA

The INSA of Toulouse is a major french engineering school belonging to several national universitary networks. After an intensive preparation of 2 years, I entered the engineering cycle in the department of Biochemistry and Bioprocess. The objective of this career is to train engineers able to control all the methodologies and processes in touch with industrial biological transformations. The career is thus divided between life sciences and engineering sciences but I also had economics, languages and communication courses.

Life sciences : I have been given a solid background in biochemistry and microbiology, first step to go further in life sciences. I have then studied enzymology (mechanisms and kinetics), molecular biology, genetics and metabolism of bacteria and yeast (which encompass the majority of microorganisms used in biological processes). I have also a good knowledge of the different technologies and techniques of analysis and purification of chemical compounds (gas chromatography and HPLC, NMR and mass spectrometry, ...).

Engineering sciences : in parallel I have studied fluid mechanics and hydrolic engineering, heat and mass transfert, reactor designing, but also disciplines which are at the interface between life and engineering sciences as bioseparation, biocatalisys, metabolic engineering... During my last year of school, I have chosen the specialization in industrial microbiology which focuses on fermentation process and its modelling.

The result of this career is a very polyvalent engineer able to make up new processes and increase its productivity, to design new catalysts (enzymes and microorganisms) that fulfil industrial constraints and to calculate biological reactors and unit operations (purification, extraction...)

More informations about INSA on its site.

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Working on Ethanol production

Introduction : In its effort to produce energy from alternate sources Total is leading a research program in the field of second generation biofuels. This program involves several workgroups with the final aim of producing ethanol from cellulose by consolidated bioprocessing. Our team has the responsability of optimizing the productivity in ethanol from glucose during fermentation process.

Material and methods : for this project I had first to familiarize myself with the manipulation of a strictly anaerobic micro-organism. From there I started genetic manipulations to increase ethanol production by metabolic engineering. I was in charge of biomolecular experiments and assay of the recombinant strains in fermentor, including the analysis of the products obtained by HPLC.

Results : Before one year of experiment we have been able to multiply the productivity in ethanol by a factor 3. This result might be followed by other progress during year 2010.

Personal benefit : As engineer responsible for the realisation of the experiments, I had to report directly to the steering comitee. This was very formative for me to be in contact with people from such a big organization as Total.

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Working on Epoxides

Introduction : Oxyrane is a South African firm dedicated in the production of highly purified chiral compounds (epoxydes). The synthesis of these compounds is realized throught enzyme catalysis. Enzymes used by Oxyrane are produced via fermentation process. My work at the LISBP was to evaluate the productivity of different epoxide hydrolase-producing recombinant organisms.

Material and methods : the first step of my work was to define a reliable protocol for the measurement of EH (epoxide-hydrolase)'s activity after the fermentation process. I tested different conditioning of the enzyme (even lyophilisated), different solvants for the reaction, and I used mainly GC for titration.
Once this method ready, I worked on the fermentation process in a 5 liters fermentor, equiped with in-line measurement of pO2, pH, temperature... The objective was to test several media with several variants and to find the best feeding-strategy with each host studied. I used the data collected in the fermentor to determine steps in batch, discontinuous fed-batch and finally continuous fed-batch mode.

Results : the protocol developped for EH activity was very reproducible. Conditioning of the enzyme gave a preparation stable several months at 4°C which was necesary to compare samples from different fermentation assays. The variants evaluated showed good response to the different strategies employed. To conclude, this study gave important informations for further variants' improvement.

Personal benefit : for 6 months I worked in autonomy, integrated in a dynamic research team, having productive exchanges with members of the lab. This has also been the occasion to improve my organisation skill as I had to plan experiences with continuous sampling over 72 hours or more.

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Working in food industry

Introduction : Beldem is a worldwide producer and supplier of food and feed ingredients, subsidiary of the Puratos Group, and which headquarters are in Belgium. Among the products sold by Beldem are different enzymes produced by recombinant hosts. I worked on one of them, a bacteria, with the objective to increase its productivity by metabolic engineering.

Material and methods : following the methods developped in the Enzyme R&D department, I planed a new metabolic engineering approach to decrease the production of co-metabolites and to redirect the excess of carbon towards the production of enzyme. I made all the experiments, from genetic transformation to evaluation of the productivity in 20 L fermentors.

Results : the internship has been too short for me to finish the evaluation of the strains I had built. However,the work I began was enough promising for the laboratory to keep on with it.

Personal benefit : this experience has been very formative to me. For my first position as "engineer" (even as student), I have been given autonomy and real responsabilities, for what I am grateful to my superior. Moreover, I found in this firm (and particularly in the Enzyme R&D department) the constant will to improve the work done and its conditions. I will try now to reproduce this dynamism in every context I will find myself.

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Working on Moringa Oleifera

Introduction : the Biomasa Project was a research co-operation project between Austria and Nicaragua working on wastewater treatment and sustainable energy production. Moringa Oleifera is a very common tropical tree which particularity is to have a fast growth and to be very rich in fibers and proteins. In the frame of a global exploitation of this tree, one idea was to use a liquid residue to produce biogas.

Material and methods : I realised the installation of a pilot UASB reactor. The inoculation has been done from the sludge of another running anaerobic digestor and I maintained the reactor for 2 months. During this period I had to provide substrate to the digestor. The input charge of nutrient was incremented slowly to let the bacterial population adapt itself to the substrate. I had to make several daily chemical analysis on the input/output of the installation : DCO, dry weight, pH... I also made several determinations of total carbon an total nitrogen. When the production of gas started I tried to determine the proportion of methane.

Results : The production of biogas really started after one month of operation. At this time, we made an increase of the charge that has been too important and the disturbance leaded to the stopover of the anaerobic digestion.

Personal benefit : this experience was far from the job you can do in a modern laboratory full of high technology but it wasn't less interesting. In fact, I had to face very practical obstacles and I managed to find solutions with the means I had, little funding and imagination.

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