Pretreatment of Biomass

Professor Ashok Pandey is currently Distinguished Scientist at CSIR-Indian Institute for Toxicology Research, Lucknow, India and Honorary Executive Director at the Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability- India; he was the former Deputy Director for CSIR’s National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology at Trivandrum, where he head the Centre for Biofuels and Biotechnology Division. Professor Pandey’s research interests are on bio-based economy for the production of fuels and chemicals. He has over 1000 publications and communications, which include 14 patents and design copyright, 34 books, 99 book chapters, and 391 original and review papers. Professor Pandey is the recipient of many national and international awards and fellowships, including Fellow of International Society for Energy, Environment and Sustainability, National Academy of Science (India), Biotech Research Society, India, and the International Organization of Biotechnology and Bioengineering. He was Chairman of the International Society of Food, Agriculture and Environment, Finland (Food & Health) from 2003-2004. He is Founder President of the Biotech Research Society, India (www.brsi.in); International Coordinator and General Secretary of International Forum on Industrial Bioprocesses, France (www.ifibiop.org), and Vice-President of the International Society for Energy, Environment & Sustainability (www.isees.org) and All India Biotech Association (www.aibaonline.com). Professor Pandey is Editor-in-chief of Bioresource Technology, Honorary Executive Advisors of Journal of Water Sustainability and Journal of Energy and Environmental Sustainability and editorial board member of several international and Indian journals. Prof. Pandey was also recently honoured as the Most Cited Author as per the Shanghai Ranking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2016.

Dr Sangeeta Negi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Biotechnology at the Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, India. She has a first class Master’s degree in Biochemistry and a PhD in Biotechnology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. She has also worked as an academic guest at the Biological Engineering Department; Polytech Clermont-Ferrand; Universite Baise Pascal, France; and at the Bioenergy and Energy Planning Research Group (BPE); Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL) Switzerland. Dr Negi’s current research interests are in the area of biofuels, industrial enzymes, and bioremediation. She is an editorial board member of the Journal of Waste Conversion, Bioproducts and Biotechnology, and Journal of Environmental Science and Sustainability. She has been awarded as "Outstanding reviewer" by Elsevier and has won the Young Scientist Award by DST at the National Seminar on Biological and Alternative Energies Present and Future organized by Andhra University, Visakhapatnam in 2009. She has also won Best Poster Award at the International Congress on Bioprocesses in Food Industries (ICBF 2008) at Hyderabad. Dr Negi has contributed to nearly 50 publications, including review articles, original papers, and conference communications.

Dr. Parmeswaran Binod works as a scientist in the biotechnology division at the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST), CSIR, Trivandrum, India. He obtained his PhD in Biotechnology from Kerala University, Trivandrum. Dr. Binod worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Korea Institute for Energy Research, Daejeon, South Korea in 2008. He worked at the Technical University of Budapest, Hungary in 2005. He joined CSIR-NIIST in 2009 as Project Scientist at the Centre for Biofuels. Dr. Binod obtained a gold medal for securing top marks at University level during graduation. His major areas of research are Biofuels, Biopolymers, and Industrial Enzymes Technology. He has published 65 publications, including research papers, review papers, book chapters, and conference communications.

Professor Christian Larroche is graduate in Biochemical Engineering from INSA, Toulouse, (1979), Docteur-Ingénieur in Organic Chemistry from Paul Sabatier Toulouse 3 University (1982), and Docteur ès Sciences (Ph D) in Biochemical Engineering from Blaise Pascal University (1990). He has strong research interest in the area of applied microbiology and biochemical engineering. His skills are related to the study and development of special processes for the use of microorganisms. This includes fungal spores production by solid state cultivation and their use as protein (enzyme) reservoir in biotransformations. A special interest in phase transfer phenomena coupled to metabolic engineering has to be noticed. It is applied to the design and optimisation of biotransformations involving hydrophobic compounds and carried out in biphasic liquid-liquid media. These processes are related both to the food and environment (bioremediation) areas. His interests have recently be extended to bioenergy, and he is presently co-ordinator of two French research programs on biohydrogen production by anaerobic microorganisms grown on complex media.

He is author of about 150 documents including 70 research papers, two patents and 12 book chapters. He has supervised 10 PhD students and 20 MSc lab works. He is member of SFGP (French Society for Process Engineering) and Chief International Coordinator of ICBF Forum, an international network entitled "Food Bioprocessing - A global approach for advancing sustainable production of value added food". He is head of the department of "Study and Development of Processes involving Microorganisms" of the platform for technological development Biotechnology – Material Engineering of Blaise Pascal University and has in charge the team "Solid state fermentations – Biotransformations" of the Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Laboratory in the same university. He has been head of the Biological Engineering department of Polytech Clermont-Ferrand, a School of Engineering of Blaise Pascal University, from 2001 to 2011. He is director of Polytech since January 2012 and, since 2008, vice-president of the university in charge of research valorization and technology transfer.