Full Faculty Members
Prof. Grant Allen
- Bioprocessing engineering for:
- waste water treatment;
- maximization fo value from industrial waste streams;
- and microalgae production from waste CO2 and waste water.
Dr. Allen is a Professor in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry and is the Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry. Among his many professional accomplishments, he is a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada, the Engineering Institute of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Tel: +1 416 978 8517 web: Personal Web Page email: dgrant.allen@utoronto.ca
Prof. Levente Diosady
- Food Engineering:
- Microencapsulation of food ingredients and nutraceuticals;
- and food fortification.
Dr. Diosady is a Professor in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at the University of Toronto, where he directs the Food Engineering Group. He is a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada, Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology, Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Hungarian Academy of Engineering, the International Academy of Food Science and Technology, and the American Oil Chemists’ Society. His innovative work has been recognized by many professional awards, including the 2007 J. W. Eva Award for outstanding service to the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology through research and service, and the Babcock-Hart Award of the Institute of Food Technologists honouring an IFT member who has attained distinction by contributions to food technology which result in improved public health through nutrition. He is a member of the Order of Ontario, the Province’s highest civilian honour.
Tel: +1 416 978 4137 web: Personal Web Page email: l.diosady@utoronto.ca
Prof. Elizabeth Edwards
- Modeling and analysis of anaerobic microbial communities for:
- biodegradation and bioremediation of toxic chemicals;
- anaerobic digestion of industrial and municipal wastes;
- and biotransformation of waste to high value products.
Dr. Edwards is the Director of BioZone and a Professor in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry. She is an internationally renowned expert in bioremediation and environmental biotechnology who has spent over 20 years developing techniques that use bacteria to clean up sites with groundwater contamination. Dr. Edwards’ research accomplishments have been recognized with several prestigious awards, including an NSERC Women’s Faculty Award, a Premier’s Research Excellence Award (PREA), a Killam Research Fellowship (Canada Council for the Arts), and Killam Prize (Canada Council for the Arts). She has been in inducted into the Canadian Academy of Engineering and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her publications include over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles, and as many government and industrial reports, book chapters and conference papers.
Tel: +1 416 946 3506 web: Personal Web Page email: elizabeth.edwards@utoronto.ca
Prof. Christopher Lawson
- Analysis and engineering of anaerobic microbiomes for:
- Quantitative systems-level understanding of microbial metabolism;
- Design and optimization of engineered microbial consortia;
- Recovery of renewable bioenergy and bioproducts from waste resources.
Dr. Lawson is an emerging leader in the field of environmental biotechnology and microbiome engineering. His research accomplishments have been recognized by the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award and the W. Wesley Eckenfelder Graduate Research Award by the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP), as well as the Canham Graduate Studies Scholarship from the Water Environment Federation (WEF). Dr. Lawson is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (Berkeley Lab) and will start as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry in September 2021.
Web: Personal Web Page email: chris.lawson@utoronto.ca
Prof. Radhakrishnan Mahadevan
- Modeling and engineering of microbial systems for:
- genome-scale models of cellular processes;
- metabolic engineering using systems and synthetic biology;
- and optimization and control of biological processes.
Dr. Mahadevan is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry and serves as BioZone’s Associate Director for Computational Resources.
Tel: +1 416 946 0996 web: Personal Web Page email: krishna.mahadevan@utoronto.ca
Prof. Emma Master
- Synthesis of new polymers and chemicals from plant fibre through:
- enzymology, protein engineering, proteomics, and lignocellulose chemistry;
- and high-resolution surface analysis ligno-cellulose modifications.
Dr. Master is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry and is BioZone’s Associate Director for Laboratories and Facilities. Her research expertise lies in enzymology, protein engineering, proteomics, applied functional genomics, and lignocellulose chemistry.
Tel: +1 416 946 7861 web: Personal Web Page email: emma.master@utoronto.ca
Prof. Alison McGuigan
- Understanding cellular interactions, orientation, and growth by:
- modeling tissue orginization and architecture;
- and tissue engineering.
Through tissue engineering the McGuigan lab is addressing the central question “How do cells make and coordinate architectural decisions in response to combinations of signaling cues?” Answering this question will fundamentally improve our understanding of embryo morphogenesis and other morphogenetic process such as wound healing, tissue regeneration, tissue integration, and tissue disorganization in disease. Applying this fundamental information will provide new therapeutic strategies for addressing problems in regenerative medicine such as engineering artificial tissues from stem cells, developing treatments for developmental diseases that result from incorrect tissue formation, and developing in vitro drug screening culture models to develop therapies for diseases like cancer or heart disease.
Tissue engineering seeks to develop advanced health technologies to regenerate and model normal and diseased tissues. During natural tissue assembly and regeneration processes, cells are recruited and re-organized into a specific architecture. For example, during wound healing or regeneration replacement cells, often stem cells, are recruited and re-organized into a specific arrangement to generate new tissue. The functionality of the tissue depends critically on correct incorporation and re-organization of the cells during the regenerative process. Understanding how cell re-organization (termed morphogenesis) is regulated and how it can be controlled is a central problem in tissue engineering. In contrast, in diseases, such as cancer, cells in the tissue re-organize incorrectly as the disease spreads. Understanding cell re-organization therefore could also provide a basis for identifying novel disease therapies.
Dr. McGuigan is an Assistant Professor and Director of the McGuigan Lab for Tissue Morphogenesis Engineering. Her research focuses on engineering functional artificial tissues as an important emerging strategy for treating patients who suffer from organ failure. Dr. McGuigan was awarded the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine Young Investigator Award in 2006, and an NSERC Discovery Accelerator grant in 2009.
Tel: +1 416 978 7552 web: Personal Web Page email: alison.mcguigan@utoronto.ca
Prof. Alexei Savchenko
- Protein and enzyme production and characterization for:
- identification of bacterial pathogenic factors;
- identification of antibiotic resistance enzymes;
- and novel enzymes of industrial relevance.
Dr. Savchenko leads Structural Microbiology Lab and is an Assistant Professor at the Banting and Best Dept of Medical Research. He is also an Associate Professor at the Dept of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry and serves as BioZone’s Associate Director for Students and Education. Dr. Savchenko has published over 100 papers and reviews, and his research has been funded by NIH, Genome Canada and NSERC.
+1 416 978 3925 web: Personal Web Page email: alexei.savchenko@utoronto.ca
Prof. Bradley Saville
- Maximizing value in forest products and other processes through;
- bioreactor design and scale-up and processing of biomass slurries;
- and economic, life cycle, and policy analysis s of bioproducts and biofuels.
Dr. Saville is a Professor in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry and is head of the Bioprocess and Enzyme Technology research group. Dr. Saville is an expert in biofuels and bioenergy benchmarking, and has been involved in the biofuels area from bench scale R&D to commercialization, economics and policy. Technology derived from his research and patents related to novel hydrolytic enzymes has been field tested in seven North American fuel ethanol plants, and has been used in the production of more than 500 million US gallons of ethanol since 2004. Dr. Saville has collaborated with SunOpta Bioprocess Inc., Xylitol Canada, Canenergy, BBI, Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada and the North American Energy Working Group on various projects related to biofuels, bioenergy and bioproducts.
+1 416 978 7745 web: Personal Web Page email: bradley.saville@utoronto.ca
Prof. Alexander Yakunin
- Enzyme discovery and enzyme engineering for:
- enhancing bioremediation efficency;
- and identifying novel biocatalysis for industrial applications.
Dr. Yakunin is Associate Professor in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry. He is also the Enzymology Group Leader at Structural Proteomics in Toronto (SPiT).
Tel: +1 416 978 4013 web: Personal Web Page email: a.iakounine@utoronto.ca