Zhanying Zhang
Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Title: Morphology control of filamentous fungus Mucor plumbeus for improved microbial oil production
Biography
Biography: Zhanying Zhang
Abstract
Microbial oils have important applications in producing high value fuels and nutraceutical products. In recent years, microbial oil production by oleaginous filamentous fungi has attracted increasing interest because fungi have relatively high growth rates are able to use a variety of carbon sources and have relatively low harvesting cost compared to heterotrophic cultivation of microalgae. Many studies on microbial oil production by filamentous fungi have been focused on low-cost substrates such as lignocellulosic biomass. However, research on morphology control is limited, which is challenging in cultivation of filamentous fungi and critical towards process scale-up and commercialization. We have previously identified an oleaginous filamentous fungus Mucor plumbeus for microbial lipid production. Cultivations of this fungus at different conditions and scales have shown the variation in fungal morphological forms. Different inoculation and process control strategies have been proposed and preliminary tested in order to control the morphological forms of this fungus suitable for reactor cultivation and process scale-up.