C. Perry Chou | Faculty | Chemical Engineering

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	C. Perry Chou Professor, PEng Canada Research Chair in Biomanufacturing Editor: Biotechnology Advances Office: E6 4004 Phone: 519-888-4567 ext. 33310 Email: cpchou@uwaterloo.ca Degrees: BS, MS, National Taiwan University; PhD, Rice University Personal Homepage

Research Expertise

Biochemical engineering, molecular biology, microbial biotechnology, genetic engineering, metabolic engineering, protein engineering

Research Interests

My major research interests include recombinant protein production, biofuel production, and bioprocessing technology. I have applied biological sciences and engineering theories to develop novel and effective bioprocesses for the production of recombinant proteins (including industrial enzymes and therapeutic proteins) and metabolites (including biohydrogen, biodiesel, and biobutanol). Such bioprocess development includes upstream technology for biological strain consturction, midstream technology for bioreaction (i.e. cultivation), and downstream processing for bioproduct recovery and purification.

Background

Recombinant DNA technology is a bio-tool developed in 1970 and plays a pivot role in today's biosciences and bioengineering. Its application presents tremendous impacts in biochemical, biomedical, pharmaceutical, agricultural, food, and environmental industries. While acting as a novel tool for unraveling scientific mysteries, it also provides an efficient means to produce desired proteins in large amounts. In addition, it can be adopted for genetic manipulation of microbial strains to obtain desired traits for enhancing biomanufacturing.

Brief Research Description

Our strategies for enhancing biomanufacturing are mainly focused on developing effective microbial host/vector systems using recombinant DNA technology. Several industrial enzymes (e.g. penicillin acylases and lipases), therapeutic proteins (e.g. human CD83), reporter proteins, metabolites (e.g. biohydrogen, biodiesel, and biobutanol) are used as target products for various biotechnological explorations, including: identification of expression limiting steps, protein secretion (i.e. periplasmic or extracellular expression), surface display, posttranslational issues, physiological manipulation of host strains, in-vivo protein misfolding (i.e. soluble expression), in-vitro protein refolding, fusion-protein technology, molecular manipulation of proteins, pathway knockouts, pathway constructions, etc.

Selected Publications

Narayanan N, Chou CP (2009) Alleviation of proteolytic sensitivity to enhance recombinant lipase production in Escherichia coli. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 75:5424-5427.
Xu Y, Zhang L, Yao W, Yedahalli SS, Brand S, Moo-Young M, Chou CP (2009) Bioprocess development for production, purification, and structural characterization of recombinant hCD83ext as a potential therapeutic protein. Protein Express. Purif. 65:92-99.
Xu Y, Yasin A, Tang R, Scharer JM, Moo-Young M, Chou CP (2008) Heterologous expression of lipase in Escherichia coli is limited by folding and disulfide bond formation. Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 81:79-87.
Chou CP (2007) Engineering cell physiology to enhance recombinant protein production in Escherichia coli. Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 76:521-532.
Wu MS, Pan KL, Chou CP (2007) Effect of heat-shock proteins for relieving physiological stress and enhancing the production of penicillin acylase in Escherichia coli. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 96:956-966.
Narayanan N, Hsieh M-Y, Xu Y, Chou CP (2006) Arabinose-induction of lac-derived promoter systems for penicillin acylase production in Escherichia coli. Biotechnol. Prog. 22:617-625.
Xu Y, Weng C-L, Narayanan N, Hsieh M-Y, Anderson WA, Scharer JM, Moo-Young M, Chou CP (2005) Chaperone-mediated folding and maturation of penicillin acylase precursor in the cytoplasm of Escherichia coli. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 71:6247-6253.
Pan K-L, Hsiao H-C, Weng C-L, Wu M-S, Chou CP (2003) Roles of DegP in prevention of protein misfolding in the periplasm upon overexpression of penicillin acylase in Escherichia coli. J. Bacteriol. 185:3020-3030.
Lin W-J, Huang S-W, Chou CP (2001) DegP coexpression minimizes inclusion body formation upon overproduction of recombinant penicillin acylase in Escherichia coli. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 73:484-492.
Chou CP, Yu C-C, Tseng J-H, Lin M-I, Lin H-K (1999) Genetic manipulation to identify limiting steps and develop strategies for high-level expression of penicillin acylase in Escherichia coli. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 63:263-272.