Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Selin Kara heads of the Institute of Technical Chemistry. With her professorship at Leibniz University, she is now pursuing her academic career in Germany.
All roads lead to Hanover
Prof. Selin Kara studied Chemical Engineering and Food Engineering at the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Turkey. In 2005, she received a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and continued her career at the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Germany. Prof. Kara received her doctorate in 2011 in the field of Biocatalysis and Bioreaction Technology in the Institute of Technical Biocatalysis, at the TUHH. She completed her doctoral thesis on biocatalysis and bioreaction technology in 2011 at the TUHH's Institute of Technical Biocatalysis. The focus was on establishing an online analytical technology with fluorescence spectroscopy for high-pressure biotransformations up to 3000 bar.
Subsequently, Prof. Kara conducted her research as a PostDoc at the Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) within the Biocatalysis Group, Department of Biotechnology. In 2013, she began her independent academic career as a group leader within the research group Molecular Biotechnology at the TU Dresden (Germany). From 2015 to 2018, Prof. Kara then worked at the Institute of Technical Biocatalysis at the TUHH, where she headed the Reaction Sequences Research Group. In May 2018, Prof. Kara completed her Habilitation within the field of Biotechnology/Bioprocess Technology "Substrate and Medium Engineering – Concepts for Biocatalytic Reaction Cascades" at the TUHH.
Internationalisation is key
Since 2018 she has headed the research group Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing at the Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering at Aarhus University, Denmark. From 2019 to 2021, Prof. Kara was also the head of the section for Industrial Biotechnology, which consists of nine individual research groups. Since then, she is responsible for research and teaching both in Denmark and Germany and supports and promotes the internationalisation of Leibniz Universität Hannover through the collective joint activities of the two universities and countries in the field of industrial biotechnology (e.g. internship abroad in the field of Industry 4.0 and digitalisation).
For a greener future
The main research goal of her group in Hanover is the conception of environmentally friendly and highly productive enzymatic processes by combining different aspects of biotechnology. The focus is on optimizing the biocatalytic conversions through (1) Substrate, (2) Medium, (3) Enzyme, and (4) Reaction Engineering. In order to reduce negative effects on the environment compared to established biotransformations, alternative reaction pathways are investigated, especially in the field of Substrate Engineering. In the context of Medium Engineering, the use of alternative reaction media, e.g. two-phase systems, deep eutectic solvents (DESs), pure organic solvents or solvent-free processes, are explored. In order to meet the practical and economic needs of biotransformations, the use of Enzyme Engineering (e.g. enzyme immobilization and enzyme modification) is aimed to design and develop robust (heterogenous) biocatalysts. The optimized reaction conditions, including all aspects mentioned above, are combined with Reaction Technology, which should lead to the development of improved bioreactor concepts in batch, feed or continuous processes. Herein, as special attention is dedicated to Flow Biocatalysis and integrated Downstream Processing.
Welcome, Professor Kara! The Faculty of Natural Sciences wishes you all the best for your upcoming tasks.
