|
Project Name |
|
|
|
|
|
Dates |
01/07/2013 – 30/06/2018 |
|
Project Collaborators |
Professor Nicholas Wright, Newcastle University Professor Tom Curtis, Newcastle University Dr Jennifer Hallinan, Newcastle University Dr Ketan Pancholi, Newcastle University Dr Paolo Zuliani, Newcastle University Dr Russell Davenport, Newcastle University Professor Anil Wipat, Newcastle University Professor Anthony Roskilly, Newcastle University Professor Darren Wilkinson, Newcastle University Professor Paul Watson, Newcastle University Dr Benjamin Bridgens, Newcastle University Dr Jinju Chen, Newcastle University Dr Andrew McGough, Newcastle University |
|
Funders |
EPSRC |
|
Project Description
|
Biology will lie at the heart of many 21st century technologies to sustainably address the numerous challenges facing societies such as waste, energy, water, corrosion and new materials. The ability to undertake credible and calibrated simulation in open engineered biological systems could transform our ability to innovate in this field: maximizing our ability to explore the range of solutions at this frontier and reducing the risk of failure at full scale. This ambitious project seeks to develop a suite of universal principles and models for the scalable simulation of biological systems thereby allowing the engineering of new functionalities offered by natural or synthetic organisms for the benefit of mankind. In order to achieve our ambition we will need to address and integrate the following objectives using the best scientific principles and theories backed by state-of-the art distributed computing power. Initially, this will be achieved using wastewater treatment as our engineering example. However, we believe our approach will be very widely applicable. Our objectives are as follows: 1. Develop validated biological floc and biofilm models that scale from the micro- to meso-scale integrating aggregate behaviour as an output from one scale to another, using physical, biological and chemical data. 2. Model flow, transport and biomechanics particularly at the microscale and how this effects bacterial colony formation, morphology, and interaction between different bacteria and surfaces. 3. Use existing, and develop new, ecological and evolutionary models to develop parameters for community diversity, size and kinetics especially for specific desired functions. 4. Develop a set of design guidelines to produce organisms with novel desired functions using synthetic biology. 5. Build and run pilot scale reactors for model parameterisation, validation and testing of our ability to predict the behaviour of natural or synthetic organisms in relation to desired functionalities such as micropollutant and lipid degradation. |
|
|
|