Dr. Rajesh is a biotechnologist, with interests and expertise in upstream processing (metabolic engineering) and midstream processing (fermentation technology) areas. He has a BTech. degree in Industrial Biotechnology, Master’s degree in Biotechnology and PhD in Metabolic Engineering and Bioprocess Development. He has worked in multidisciplinary areas covering the (metabolic) engineering cycle of design, build, test and analyze. This includes areas related to synthetic biology, enzyme engineering, fermentation technology and systems biology. His previous research projects were based on engineering bacteria for efficient production of valuable products especially focusing on second and third generation feedstocks. He has also worked with heterotrophic, autotrophic bacteria and yeast, studying their metabolism, designing targets for enhanced production of a product, characterizing them using systems biology tools and developing an efficient bioprocess. His current interests are working towards an integrated biomanufacturing concept where renewable feedstocks are efficiently converted to basic building blocks making them readily available for the microbial cell factories which can convert these building blocks to a valuable product or energy rich compound creating a sustainable platform. He would like to work in collaboration with industries and academia in an interdisciplinary team which makes this integrated biomanufacturing possible. Currently, he is working as part of HBBE (Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment) where he is focusing on creating microbial technologies producing high value energy rich products from renewable feedstocks within the context of the ‘living house’.
