Doraiswami Ramkrishna, Ph.D.

To further the quest to harness microbes for beneficial uses, scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Purdue University developed a promising computational tool for analyzing microbial flux distribution and metabolic engineering. They used the Lumped Hybrid Cybernetic Model (L-HCM), developed by Purdue researchers Dr. Hyun-Seob Song and Dr. Doraiswami Ramkrishna, to predict and simulate the metabolic dynamics of Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 during aerobic growth in a bioreactor.

In this use, L-HCM predicted experimentally determined dynamic metabolic shifts, a capability well beyond the scope of constraint-based modeling approaches. The researchers established procedures for modeling microbial metabolism during growth on different carbon compounds. Their research also provides the basis for modeling S. oneidensis under more complex environments.

Doraiswami (Ramki) Ramkrishna, the H.C. Peffer Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, is the winner of the 2013 Purdue Sigma Xi Chapter Faculty Research Award.  The award recognizes outstanding research achievement and contributions to scientific knowledge by a Purdue faculty member.

Rakesh Agrawal, the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, and Doraiswami Ramkrishna, the Harry Creighton Peffer Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, have been elected as Foreign Fellows of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.