ABPDU Director Deepti Tanjore was interviewed by Gregory Scharfstein of Berkeley Lab’s Intellectual Property Office on her background, her work at the lab and her dedication to resolving scale-up challenges for synthetic biology based technologies.
Tanjore is the Director of the Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts Process Development Unit (ABPDU). She has served as the Interim Program Head of the ABPDU since March 2019. She also leads the Process Engineering and Analytics Department of the Biological Systems and Engineering (BSE) Division.
Tanjore graduated from Andhra University with a Bachelor of Technology in Chemical Engineering and went on to earn her PhD in Biological Engineering from Pennsylvania State University. She completed her postdoctoral training at University of California, Riverside. Tanjore is currently pursuing an MBA at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
Tanjore has been with the ABPDU since its first week of operations in 2011. She has served as a principal investigator on several BETO- and industry-sponsored projects, and possesses expertise in a broad spectrum of biochemical and chemical unit operations applicable to the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into biofuels and bioproducts. She is particularly interested in understanding the “science of scale-up” associated with fermentation-based production technologies.
Tanjore is involved in several outreach activities at Berkeley Lab and in the community. She has served as BSE’s representative on the Lab’s Women Scientists and Engineers Council (WSEC). Tanjore also serves on advisory boards for the biomanufacturing program at Laney College and the biotechnology program at Berkeley City College.