Fermentation scientist

Vilas B. Shukla, Ph.D.

Phone: 408-***-**** (H) 650-***-**** (C) 7958 McClellan Road Apt # 4

Email: ************@*****.*** Cupertino, CA- 95014

Microbiologist with over ten years of process development experience from test tube level to commercial scale by strain development, fermentation process improvement and scale up using bacterial, yeast, and fungal system for the production of small molecules, and proteins. Strengths include Fermentation Technology, Biocatalysis, Metabolic & Biochemical Engineering, Molecular Biology, and Enzymology.

Industrial Experience

Codexis Inc., Redwood City CA, Staff Scientist 2007 -2009

Worked on Bio-industrial project, collaboration with Shell, major petrochemical interested in bio-fuel.

• Cloning and expression of 250 cellulases genes from different eukaryotic and prokaryotic organisms at shake flask level and 45 at pilot plant scale (20 L) fermentation.

• Engineering of eukaryotic (yeast) and prokaryotic (Bacillus) expression system and process development for production of celluloses. Six times improvement in biomass and enzyme production through engineering yeast.

• Improvement of enzyme properties by directed evolution technology.

• Improvement of microbial host and fermentation process for production of bio-fuel ethanol.

• Acting inter phase between molecular biology, analytical biochemistry, bioinformatics, enzyme chemist, and bioprocessing.

Please refer to postdoctoral experience with industrial applications for the period of 2001-2007

Lupin Chemicals Ltd., Mumbai, Executive R & D 2000–2001

Plan, carry out, and supervise (six people) R & D activities and management of inter-departmental and cross functional activities.

• Standardization and application of molecular biology, and genetic engineering techniques in strain improvement of Rifamycin – B production.

• Process improvement at shake flask and lab scale fermenter (20 L) to increase Rifamycin productivity and scale up of process to pilot plant 1, 000 L and production scale 50,000 L reactor.

• Saving 10% production cost by solving recurring problem of contamination in production scale fermenter.

• Development of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP's) for different R & D and pilot plant activities and to educate staff about GLP and GMP practice.

• Preparation of scientific reports, monthly reports of R&D activities, submission of proposal for production of novel products at commercial scale and involvement in the commercialization of lovastatin production.

Nicholas Piramal Ltd., Mumbai (Formerly Hoechst Research Center) Research Scientist 1999-2000

Isolation of fungal cultures and fermentative production of novel anti-fungal antibiotic at bench and pilot scale.

• Trouble-shooting, optimization of industrial processes and commercialization of proprietary fermentation technologies.

Technical Skills

• Development of commercial strains, designing of fermentation, biotransformation processes at laboratory scale fermenter and scale up.

• Well acquainted with preparation of gene libraries, cloning of genes, sequencing, site-directed mutagenesis, over-expression, purification of recombinant enzymes, and enzyme kinetics.

• Micro-array and proteomic analysis using ImaGene 5.5, GeneSite Light, ArrayStat, Bio-Rad Versa Doc Imaging system, ExPASY tools, Isolation & identification of proteins, proteomics.

• Hands on experience with the Chemap, New Brunswick & Sartorious fermenters, Bubble column reactors, Internal loop reactors, ABI Prism 310 Genetic Analyzer,

• Well acquainted with various analytical techniques including GLC, GC-MS, HPLC, Chiral HPLC, Polarimeter, HPTLC, UV, FT-IR and NMR, ELISA, CD spectro-polarimeter, MALDI-TOF, Mass Spectrophotometer.

Postdoctoral Experience with industrial application

Purdue University Lilly Hall of Life Sciences, West Lafayette, IN-47907. 2005-2007

Engineering of cyanobacterial system for production of fuels and chemicals

• Development of different strategies for engineering Cyanothece for production of ethanol, lactic acid, poly-

hydroxy alkonoate (PHA), cyanophycin, lipids, hydrogen fuel.

• Involvement in writing project proposal for BP-Purdue-MIT Energy Center and for Midwest Bio-energy Center.

Molecular basis of Chromium (VI), resistance and bioremediation using integrated biochemical, genomics and proteomics approaches.

• Over expresseion and purification of DNA-binding response regulator and putative azoreductase, for establishing

their role in Chromium (VI) resistance and reduction.

• Transcriptome and proteome analysis of the Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 under Chromium (VI) stress.

Miami University, Hughes Laboratory, Oxford, OH- 45056. 2003-2005

Enzyme structure – function relationship

• Prediction of structure–function model for pyrroline-5-carboxylate reductase using bio-informatics approach.

• Over expressed enzyme, site-directed mutagenesis and chemical modifications of the enzyme to validate the model.

• Developed activity based targeted proteomic assay for detection of the enzyme on 2-D protein gel.

University of Florida, Department of Microbiology & Cell Sciences Gainesville, FL-32611. 2001-2003

Metabolic engineering of E.coli for fermentative production of lactic acid and ethanol.

• Strain improvement of engineered ethanolgenic E. coli for increasing alcohol tolerance and ethanol production.

• Comparison of ethanol production patterns using different pentoses and hexoses.

• Engineering E. coli for production of lactic acid from molasses and sucrose in complex and minimal media.

Education, Status and Publications

PhD (Microbiology) Department of Chemical Technology (UDCT), University of Mumbai, India. 1995-1999

Studies in Microbial Biotransformation

• Application of different aspects of fermentation, biochemical engineering, process development, downstream processing, & scale up for biocatalysis of benzaldehyde to L-phenylacetylcarbinol (L-PAC) using yeast and conversion of L-PAC to Ephedrine.

• Standardization process parameters for free and immobilized biocatalysis and scale up of it using respiration rate.

MS (Microbiology) Department of Life sciences, North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon India. 1992-1994

BS (Microbiology) Pune University, India 1989-1992

Visa Status Permanent Resident

Publications Refer to Addendum for list of selected peer reviewed publications.

Addendum

Vilas B. Shukla, Ph.D.

Phone: 408-***-**** (H) 650-***-**** (C) 7958 McClellan Road Apt # 4

Email: ************@*****.*** Cupertino, CA- 95014

Research Publications

• 1-Pyrroline-5’-Carboxylate Reductase is an Evolutionarily Distant Member of the B-Hydroxyacid Dehydrogenase Enzyme Family V.B. Shukla and J.W. Hawes in Enzymology and Molecular Biology of Carbonyl Metabolism, Vol. 12, (Editor Henry Weiner) Purdue University Press (2005) ISBN 1-55753-384-9.

• Production of D(-)-lactate from sucrose and molasses V.B. Shukla, S.Zhou, L.P. Yomano, K.T. Shanmugam, J.F. Preston and L.O. Ingram Biotechnol. Lett.(2004) 26 (9), 689-693.

• Comparative studies on bioconversion of benzaldehyde to L-phenylacetylcarbinol (L-PAC) using calcium alginate- and barium alginate- immobilized cells of Torulospora delbrueckii V.B. Shukla and P.R. Kulkarni J.Chem.Technol. Biotechnol (2003) 78 (9), 949-951.

• Biotransformation of benzaldehyde into L-phenylacetylcarbinol (L-PAC) by Torulaspora delbrueckii and conversion to ephedrine by microwave radiation V.B. Shukla, V. R. Madyar, B. M. Khadilkar & P. R. Kulkarni J.Chem.Technol. Biotechnol. (2002), 77 (2) 137-140.

• Studies on fermentative production of squaline P. Bhattacharjee, V.B. Shukla, R.S. Singhal, and P. R. Kulkarni World J. Microbiol. Biotechnol (2001), 17, 811-816.

• Scale up of biotransformation process in stirred tank Reactor using dual impeller bioreactor V.B. Shukla, U. Parasu Veera, P.R. Kulkarni and A.B. Pandit. Biochem. Eng. J. (2001) 8 (1), 19-29.

• Process parameters and reusability of cell mass for production of L-Phenylacetylcarbinol (L-PAC) by free cells of Torulospora delbrueckii V.B. Shukla and P.R. Kulkarni World J. Microbiol. Biotechnol (2001) 17(3) 301-306.

• Review: L-Phenyl Acetyl Carbinol (L-PAC): Biosynthesis and Industrial Applications V.B. Shukla, & P. R. Kulkarni World J Microbiol Biotechnol (2000) 16, 499 - 506.

• Biotransformation of Benzaldehyde to L -Phenylacetylcarbinol (L-PAC) by Free Cells of Torulaspora delbrueckii in presence of Beta - Cyclodextrin V.B. Shukla and P.R. Kulkarni Brazilian Archives of Biol. Technol. (2002) 45 (3), 265-268.

• Production of Allyl phenyl carbinol (APC) by biotransformation using Rhizopus arrhizus V.B. Shukla and P. R. Kulkarni Brazilian Archives of Biol. Technol. (2000) 43 (3), 249-252.

• Downstream processing of biotransformation broth for recovery and purification of L-phenyl acetyl carbinol (L-PAC), V.B. Shukla and P.R. Kulkarni. J. Scien.Ind.Res. (1999), 58 (8), 591-593.

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