Polysaccharide Degrading Biocatalysts

Dr. Rosana Goldbeck is presently Associate Professor in the Food Engineering Faculty (FEA) at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). She graduated in food engineering (2005) at the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG), with a master’s degree (2008) and PhD (2012) in food engineering from the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), and a part of her PhD was carried out at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). She held a postdoctoral degree at the Brazilian Laboratory of Bioethanol Science and Technology (CTBE) at the National Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM). Her experience is mainly in the area of biotechnology and bioengineering with emphasis in fermentative processes, production and purification of enzymes, cloning and expression of heterologous proteins, enzymatic hydrolysis, production of biofuels (bioethanol), and other value-added products (xylooligosaccharides) from agro-industrial residues. Dr. Patrícia Poletto is Full Research Professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Florianópolis—Brazil, and a collaborating researcher at the Biological Engineering Laboratory focused on fermentative and enzymatic processes. Patrícia completed her bachelor’s degree in food engineering (2007) and her PhD in biotechnology (2015) in the area of production and recovery of by solid-state fermentation. She has been working on chemical, fermentative, and enzymatic methods to convert agro-industrial residues mainly into oligosaccharides.

1. Plant cell wall polysaccharides: Methodologies for compositional, structural, and physicochemical characterization 2. Genetic modification of plants to increase the saccharification of lignocellulose 3. The diversity of plant carbohydrate hydrolysis in nature and technology 4. State-of-the-art experimental and computational approaches to investigate structure, substrate recognition, and catalytic mechanism of enzymes 5. Pretreatments as a key for enzymatic hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass 6. Importance of accessory enzymes in hemicellulose degradation 7. How ligninolytic enzymes can help in the degradation of biomass polysaccharides, cleavage, and catalytic mechanisms? 8. Biochemical and biotechnological aspects of microbial amylases 9. Hydrolysis of complex pectin structures: Biocatalysis and bioproducts 10. Macroalgal polysaccharides: Biocatalysts in biofuel/bioenergy production 11. Mathematical modeling of the enzymatic hydrolysis of polysaccharides: A primer 12. Polysaccharide deconstruction products: Production of bio-based building blocks 13. Polysaccharide degradation for oligosaccharide production with nutraceutical potential for the food industry 14. Carbohydrate-active enzymes in the production of lactose-derived tagatose 15. Immobilized biocatalysts for hydrolysis of polysaccharides 16. Carbohydrate-based economy: Perspectives and challenges