Professor Jagroop Pandhal

BSc (Hons), MSc (Hons), PhD

Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering

Professor of Microbial Systems Engineering

Dr Jags Pandhal
Dr Jagroop Pandhal of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Profile picture of Dr Jags Pandhal
j.pandhal@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 4914

Full contact details

Professor Jagroop Pandhal
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Room D61
Sir Robert Hadfield Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
Profile

I am a biological engineer with a passion for exploiting the diverse functional capabilities of microbes to answer emerging societal challenges. We are largely focussed on metabolic engineering of microbial systems for making all sorts of products from high to medium/low value, including therapeutic proteins and polyols for bio-plastics. We also use microbes for bioremediation and resource recovery, including toxic industrial waste streams all the way to chemical warfare agents. More recently we have become fascinated with the concept of creating synthetic microbial communities to face some of the more complex challenges. We apply a variety of tools to uncover interactions and metabolic functions, with quantitative proteomics being one of our favourite tools.

My undergraduate was in Microbiology in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at The University of Sheffield. I then spent time doing research in Chicago, USA followed a year of research in applied aspects of biosciences in Nottingham. However, I returned to Sheffield for my doctoral studies and worked at the interface of life sciences and engineering, developing quantitative proteomics tools to complement environment-focused projects with functional characterisation. After a successful PDRA funded by the Bioprocess Research Industry Club I was awarded an Independent Fellowship from NERC. Since 2015, I have led my own research team as an academic in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE). Although this means I have spent a long time in Sheffield, I have made an excellent base to collaborate with academics across all faculties, and have some brilliant friends to share ideas and write grants with.

I am particularly proud of my research group, and so far, have been lucky to supervise an incredibly international team of PhD students and PDRA’s with representatives from Portugal, Italy, India, Cameroon, Iraq, UK, Kuwait, Nigeria, Malaysia, China, Brazil and Mexico. My other role in the department is PGR Admissions Tutor, and having undertaken my PhD here many, many years ago, I feel well placed to share the merits of being part of CBE.

Research interests

My Research interests are:

  • Metabolic engineering
  • Quantitative proteomics (metaproteomics and glycosylation)
  • Synthetic microbial communities
  • Algae Biotechnology
  • Biomanufacturing

It is widely recognised that the fundamental training of a biologist and an engineer is different. Mathematical theories and quantitative methods are at the forefront of engineering approaches, and therefore their application to complex systems, including biological, is a useful attribute.

However, biologists have the advantage of formulating better testable hypotheses, experimental designs and data interpretation from these complex biological systems. This is namely due to different techniques and strategies used by life scientists to qualitatively decipher complex systems.

The skills of an engineer and life scientist are therefore complementary. I work at this interface to reveal (hopefully useful) information about complex biological systems.

Publications

Journal articles

Chapters

Conference proceedings papers

Preprints

Teaching interests

I teach fundamental concepts in biotechnology to first year students through to more complex unit operations involved in environmental engineering to MEng and MSc students. This covers about 350 students.

Teaching activities
  • CPE190 Engineering with Living Systems I
  • CPE 408/6081 Environmental Engineering: Liquid Effluents
  • MAT308 Research Seminars in Bioengineering