BPI Seminar by Dr. Valerie Ward
October 15, 2026, 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
From Pathway to Process: Engineering Microbial Production and Sustainable Bioprocessing
Location: CHBE #202, 2360 East Mall Vancouver BC V6T 1Z4
Agenda
- 12:00 PM Introduction by Dr. Jaya Joshi
- 12:05 PM Presentation by Dr. Valerie Ward, Associate Professor in Chemical Engineering, Canada Research Chair in Microalgae Biomanufacturing, and Director of the Waterloo Centre for Microbial Research, University of Waterloo
- 12:45 PM Q&A
Abstract
Biomanufacturing technologies must address challenges across the entire production pathway—from intracellular metabolism and product storage to feedstock processing and downstream recovery. The first part of the talk will focus on metabolic and cellular engineering for carotenoid biosynthesis in E. coli. This includes the development of an artificial biosynthetic pathway and implementation of the isoprenoid alcohol utilization pathway (IUP) to provide an alternative route to carotenoid precursors. Beyond increasing metabolic flux, we have investigated how cellular architecture can constrain production, including engineering bacterial membranes to expand their capacity to store hydrophobic carotenoids. More recently, we have developed an engineered pathway for carotenoid secretion, offering a strategy to reduce intracellular accumulation and potentially enable continuous product recovery. The second part will explore the use of ionic liquids as versatile tools for more sustainable bioprocessing. Examples include ionic-liquid-based biomass fractionation, ionic liquid catalysts for the direct transesterification of wet microbial biomass to biodiesel, and the development of novel ionic liquid surfactants for the low-cost recovery of polyhydroxybutyrate. Together, these projects illustrate an integrated approach to biomanufacturing in which cellular metabolism, physical product constraints, feedstock processing, and downstream recovery are engineered as interconnected parts of the same system.
About the Speaker
Dr. Valerie Ward is an Associate Professor in Chemical Engineering, Canada Research Chair in Microalgae Biomanufacturing, and Director of the Waterloo Centre for Microbial Research at the University of Waterloo. Her interdisciplinary research program combines metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, and bioprocess engineering to develop more efficient and sustainable approaches to producing pharmaceuticals, functional biomolecules, and biobased materials. Her research spans the engineering of microbial pathways for carotenoid and isoprenoid production, cell-free protein synthesis, microalgal biotechnology, and the application of ionic liquids to biomass processing and product recovery. A central theme of her work is the integration of biological and process engineering—from controlling cellular metabolism and product storage to designing scalable strategies for downstream purification and commercialization.