I am grateful for the opportunity given to me by SilicoLife to perform my PhD as part of the PAcMEN program. I am confident that my working experience in chemical process simulation and optimization of metabolism of microorganisms during my undergraduate work and master’s degree provides me with the tools to contribute to the advancement of systems biology.

José Roberto Fuzer Neto has contributed to the project until August 2018. We wish him good luck for his future endeavors.

Project 3: Development of advanced simulation/optimization methods and cellular objective functions


The ESR3 project aims the development of innovative mathematical modelling approaches to simulate and optimize the production of bio-based chemicals. By exploiting genomic-scale models and stoichiometric modelling it is proposed to find engineering solutions to overcome critical metabolic bottlenecks in the bioproduction of value-added chemicals. The production of a target carboxylic acid in Saccharomyces cerevisiae will be used as a case-study to develop and evaluate novel simulation and/or optimization methods. Rationally designed optimal strains will be then validated by implementing predicted genetic modifications and evaluating metabolic phenotypes. The economical evaluation of the bioprocess will be also assessed.

Research Interests


I am a graduate in Chemical Engineering from the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) in Brazil. As an undergraduate, I always had interest in biochemical research. I carried out my first scientific project in the group of biochemical engineering at DEQ-UFSCar (Department of Chemical Engineering) under supervision of Professor Teresa Cristina Zangirolami, where I worked on the development of techniques for cell lysis of recombinant Escherichia coli to recover intracellular metabolites. After that, I worked with chemical process simulation on the reactive distillation process of bio-diesel production.
Finally, I performed my master thesis in the group of biochemical engineering at DEQ-UFSCar under supervision of Professor Adilson José da Silva and Professor Teresa Cristina Zangirolami, where I studied Salmonella typhimurium metabolism in order to reduce acetate production and to allow the implementation of high-density cell cultures of this microorganism.

 

About the Project

José Roberto Fuzer Neto