Tools, Techniques and Protocols for Monitoring Environmental Contaminants

Dr. S. K. Brar is Associate Professor at Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (Eau, Terre et Environnement, INRS-ETE), Québec, Canada. She graduated in Master’s in Organic Chemistry from National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India with Master’s in Technology in Environmental Sciences and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Mumbai, India and a Ph.D. in Environmental Biotechnology from INRS, Quebec, Canada in 2007. After a short post-doctoral fellowship at McGill University, she started her career as Assistant Professor at INRS-ETE. She is leading the research group on the Bioprocessing and Nano-Enzyme Formulation Facility (BANEFF) at INRS-ETE. Her research interests lie in the development of finished products (formulations) of wastewater and wastewater sludge based value-added bioproducts, such as enzymes, organic acids, platform chemicals, biocontrol agents, biopesticides, butanol and biohydrogen. She is also interested in the fate of endocrine disrupter compounds, pharmaceuticals, nanoparticles and other toxic organic compounds during value-addition of wastewater and wastewater sludge in turn finding suitable biological detoxification technologies. The facility has so far led to the successful supervision of 20 PhD students, 6 Master’s students and 6 postdoctoral students. She has collaborative programmes with several industries in Canada and researchers from Argentina, Spain, Chile, Switzerland, France, Vietnam, China, USA, India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Morocco, Tunisia and Ivory Coast. Dr. Brar is a recipient of the ASCE State-of-the-Art of Civil Engineering award (2007) for her article titled, "Bioremediation of Hazardous Wastes - A Review," which was published in the Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic & Radioactive Waste Management – Special issue on Bioremediation. She has also received the Rudolf gold medal (2008) for her originality of the article published in Practice Periodical of Hazardous, Toxic & Radioactive Waste Management. Recently, in 2014, she has been elected as member of The College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada in recognition for the emerging generation of Canadian intellectual leadership and outstanding performance in her field of environmental biotechnology. She was recently named as the “YWCA women in science” excellence award. She is on the editorial board of Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology Journal and associate editor of Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste (ASCE). She has won several accolades throughout her professional career including the outstanding young scientist in India in 2002 (during her short stint at Defense Research and Development Organization) and several others. She has more than 230 research publications which include five books, 40 book chapters, 125 original research papers, 60 research communications in international and national conferences and has registered 2 patents to her credit.

Krishnamoorthy Hegde. Krishnamoorthy Hegde is an FRQNT researcher at Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (Eau, Terre et Environnement, INRS-ETE), Québec, Canada. His research interest lies in Green synthesis of functionalized polymers, Development of advanced biosensors for environmental applications, conversion of biomass waste and industrial waste for biofuel production, Technology development for treatment of environmental contaminants in effluents, waste water and drinking water, development for microbial and biocatalyst assisted degradation of petroleum crude wastes (bioremediation). He completed his PhD in Biotechnology from Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati in 2014 and holds more than 8 years’ industrial and academic research experience in the field of molecular biology, Protein Chemistry, Genetic Engineering Technology, metabolic engineering, biocatalysis, Bioprocess Development, and renewable energy. During his industrial research tenure, he worked for nearly 3 years, as a project leader at his former work place (Navya Biologicals Pvt. Ltd., India) towards metabolic pathway engineering of yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Pichia pastoris) for production of therapeutic recombinant proteins. One of the upstream metabolic engineering project he was involved as a lead researcher in the year 2007-2008 is now at the finishing stage (formulation) to release its product to market in India. Further, during his industrial postdoctoral research in India, he contributed significantly at Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Green R&D (HPCL GRD), India towards sustainable biocatalyst development, development of novel technology for bioremediation and effluent waste treatment for petrochemical wastes, technology transfer and field trials of the ‘in-house’ techniques developed at laboratory scale in petroleum refineries. In addition, he also worked on industrial-academic collaborative projects towards pathway engineering and strain improvement for biobutanol production during his industrial postdoctoral research. His research contribution is credited with more than 25 peer reviewed publications and 5 patents.

Dr. Pachapur is currently a researcher at CRIQ (Research Center Industrial Du Québec) as industrial partner and Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, (Eau, Terre et Environnement, INRS-ETE) as university partner under the receipt of "MITACS Accelerate Scholarship-2018". Dr. Pachapur also holds the "FRQNT Post-Doctoral Merit scholarship-2017," carried out at LAVAL University (Department of Civil Engineering and Water Engineering) on novel hydrolysis for forest residues. Dr. Pachapur completed his Ph.D in Environmental Biotechnology from INRS-ETE in 2017 on Bio-hydrogen production using co-culture system. During PhD tenure, he has achieved 10 article publications across international journals (8 research and 2 reviews) and 1 US and CANADA patent submission. Recently his Ph.D thesis was awarded as "BEST THESIS PRIZE FOR INOVATION-2017" across three INRS centers. At "National Biodiesel Conference" in San Diego, U.S.A in January 2017, his Ph.D report was recognized as "Next Generation Scientists" and presentation was awarded with a scholarship. Dr. Pachapur has nearly 8+ years of industrial and academic experience in the related field of molecular, microbiology, fermentation, analytical and proteomics platforms. Working on emerging areas of industrial biotechnology such as bioremediation using enzymes, bio-valorization of industry wastes, development of novel-green method, molecular profiling on microbial pathways, co-culture fermentation for biofuels and platform chemicals production from industrial wastes. Till now, Dr. Pachapur has achieved 25+ peer reviewed publications across internationals journals, book chapters with above 300 citations, 10 research communications in conferences and 2 patent submissions to his credit.