Winners of the BlueCompetition 2013 Announced

The winners of the BlueCompetition 2013 can now be announced. At the international science competition revolving around gas analysis in bioprocesses, a group of scientists from the Clemson University (USA) were ultimately able to prevail, if only by a small margin. The group comprised of Matthew Pepper, Li Wang, Ajay Padmakumar, Assoc. Prof. Timothy C. Burg, Assoc. Prof. Sarah W. Harcum and Assoc. Prof. Richard E. Groff from the Institute of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as the Institute of Bioengineering, developed a real-time bioprocess control for aerobic metabolic processes.

A jury of independent scientists awarded the highest number of points, as the final tally showed, to the group of researchers from the US state of South Carolina. The jury was comprised of Prof. Gesine Cornelissen from HAW Hamburg, Prof. Lars Blank from RWTH Aachen and Acting Prof. Eiden from W-HS Gelsenkirchen. When awarding the points, Eiden explained why he found the work on the project so convincing: “The team around Prof. Groff from the Clemson University impressively demonstrated how the BlueSens gas analysis is used to obtain mass transfer data in biological systems in real time, and how these insights can be directly utilised for optimising complex metabolic processes”. For the paper titled: “A Real-time Adaptive Oxygen Transfer Rate Estimator for Metabolism Tracking in Escherichia Coli Cultures”, the working group will receive prize money totalling €5,000.

Another group from the USA finished as the runner up. The team formed by Assistant Professor John M. Pisciotta, Joe Mossman, Zehra Zaybak and William Schultz from the Institute of Biology at the West Chester University in Pennsylvania, and their project titled “Enhanced waste to fuel conversion with a bioelectrochemically controlled autotrophic bioreactor”, was only narrowly defeated. The scientists employed photobioreactors to produce biogas sustainably using algae. The group comprised of Martina Schedler, Nneka Maryrose Enwena, Dr. Ana Gabriela Valladares Juárez and Prof. Rudolf Müller from the Institute for Technical Biocatalysis at the TU Hamburg Harburg scored third place with their studies on the biological degradation of crude oil following the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

Prize money totaling €9,000 was divided up among the winners, and selected project reports by the participants will be published by BlueSens.