 " The main goal of
our research is to analyze, control and exploit molecular interactions
involving proteins and colloidal particles. The motivation is initially to
obtain improved quantitative insights into existing processes, leading to
more effective methods for designing and using them, but an auxiliary
objective is to develop new products and operations. These themes bring
together a diverse collection of research activities, discussed below,
involving theoretical and experimental work dealing with both the
fundamentals -- transport, kinetic and thermodynamic phenomena -- and
their interaction in the process environment. The path from molecular
structure through continuum properties to process design represents the
central paradigm in modern chemical engineering, but it has been applied
much less extensively to species such as proteins than to small molecules;
such processes as protein separations still depend very heavily on
empirical methods for design and optimization. "
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