Lipidomic and functional characterization of industrial fermentation by-products to predict potential technological applications

Description

Lipids have assumed considerable recognition because, in general, these compounds are involved in many vital biological processes in animals, plants, and microorganisms. In consideration, disturbances in lipid metabolism are known to follow diverse illness states (e.g. coronary disease, obesity, type II diabetes, and inflammation).
Lipidomic and functional characterization of Amyris industrial fermentation by-products open a variety of new possibilities in the framework of circular economy by introducing new applications of the industrial collateral materials that contain interesting lipids (e.g. phytochemicals from Saccharum officinarum L., phospholipids from spent yeast or terpenes in distillation derivatives). Thus, this focus on lipid research needs the utilization of proper tools, namely analytical and separation techniques that due to the complexity and the high number of different compounds in the lipid family, as well as their interactions with the containing matrix, has to be specifically adapted to the studied material.
The present research proposal is based on the hypothesis that the by-products from the fermentative processes involving different strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae contain high-value lipids with possible applications in the animal feeding, human health, cosmetics, biomaterial, and/or biofuels areas but their identification can only be accomplished after the development of appropriate characterization and isolation techniques

Period	1 Sept 2020 → 2 Feb 2024
Degree of Recognition	PhD