10/05/2026
By Dongming Xie

The Alfred A. Donatelli Endowed Chemical Engineering Seminar: Combining Bio- and Chemo-Catalysis Provides New Options for Biobased Materials, Surfactants and Functional Peptides will be presented by Prof. Richard Gross, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

  • Date: Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026
  • Time: 3:30–4:45 p.m.
  • Location: Ball Hall 214

Abstract

Meeting the growing global demand for chemicals and materials, while reducing CO₂ emissions and limiting climate impacts, remains one of society’s biggest challenges. Our group focuses on research we believe can truly reshape how next-generation chemicals and materials are made. To do this, we integrate chemical and biological catalysis to create greener, more efficient routes for producing monomers, prepolymers, new polymers, polymer modifications, and polymer degradation. We are also extending these strategies to the development of next-generation therapeutics, including small-molecule drugs, tissue-engineering matrices, and biodegradable polymers. By leveraging a rapidly expanding toolkit of biobased building blocks and enzymes to build and functionalize polymeric materials, we aim to deliver environmental, economic, and performance advantages. These benefits stem directly from milder and safer reaction conditions, higher efficiencies, fewer processing steps, the elimination of heavy metals, and the ability to design well-defined, functional materials. This lecture will focus on the following three research programs:

  • Part 1: A brief description will be given of the development of an engineered Candida tropicalis strain produced by identification and removal of 16 genes from the parent strain (H5343). The engineered C. tropicalis strain (DP 428) converts fatty acids to ω-hydroxy-fatty acids with volumetric yield and productivity of 90 g•L-1 and 1.5 g•L-1•h-1. Condensation polymerization of ω-hydroxy-tetradecanoic acid resulted in industrially compostable polymeric materials, copolymers, and other functional entities.
  • Part 2: Protease-catalyzed routes to oligopeptides: The vision motivating this work is the development of protease-catalyzed synthetic routes to oligopeptides with control of sequence and chain length. Current progress and future vision of this work will be presented.
  • Part 3: Biosurfactants known as sophorolipids: Sophorolipids (SLs) consist of dimeric sophorose linked by a glycosidic bond to the penultimate hydroxyl group of an 18-carbon fatty acid. Our laboratory has produced these compounds by fermentation in titers up to 200 g•L-1 from glucose and oleic acid. The presentation will focus on modification of SLs for use as emulsifiers, antimicrobial agents, and other functional moieties.

Bio

Professor Richard A. Gross is full professor and a Constellation Chaired Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). His research combines mild enzyme and green chemical pathways to develop next-generation biobased chemicals and materials. Current research targets include enzyme catalysts for polymer biorecycling and modification, engineering bacterial cellulose thickness, porosity and morphology for advanced material applications, biocomposites, scalable protease-catalyzed routes to polypeptides, lipase-catalyzed routes to bioresorbable polyesters, and molecular editing of glycolipids to develop therapeutics.

He has about 430 publications in peer-reviewed journals, has been cited about 36,000 times (h-index 100, i10-index 361), has edited 13 books and has 26 patents (granted or filed). He was the recipient of the 2003 Presidential Green Chemistry Award in the academic category. In 2010, he was the Turner Alfrey Visiting Professor, and in 2014, he became a Fellow of the ACS Polymer Division. He has directed NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers in Biodegradable Polymers (1993–1998) and Biocatalysis/Bioprocessing of Macromolecules (2001–2017). In 2017, he received the lifetime achievement award from the Bioenvironmental Polymer Society (BEPS). In 2019, he was the recipient of the ACS Award for Affordable Green Chemistry. He founded and chaired the inaugural Gordon Research Conference on Biomass to Biobased Chemicals and Materials at Jordan Hotel at Sunday River (July 14–19, 2019). In January 2022, he assumed the position of editor-in-chief of Industrial Biotechnology.

For more information, please contact Dongming_Xie@uml.edu.