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ONDERZOEK IN DE KIJKER INDUSTRY OR ACADEMIA? THE ANSWER IS BOTH Every year, Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO- Vlaams Agentschap Innoveren en Ondernemen) provides funding for doctoral and postdoctoral research in close collaboration with a Flemish company. In 2019, thirty Baekeland-mandates (PhD) were submitted in collaboration with an academic promotor from KU Leuven. Nineteen projects were approved amounting to a success rate of 63%. We caught up with André Carlos Munoz Lopez (Ghent Technology Campus), current Baekeland mandate –holder. Could you introduce your research project? After an initial pre-doctoral phase at the KU Leuven research group, BioTeC+, I am now in my second year of PhD supported by a Baekeland mandate from VLAIO. The project plan was developed during that pre-doctoral phase and successfully defended in front of a mixed academia-industry jury. The scope of my research falls within the framework of Industry 4.0. It aims at developing novel methods for data-driven modelling, control, and optimization of chemical production processes. I use data that is continuously generated at the production sites of Janssen Pharmaceutica (Johnson & Johnson) to construct mathematical models for a better understanding, controlling and optimizing their processes. My PhD research contributes to a more efficient production of medicines to meet the volumes required for the patients but also, and more importantly, to the quality standards of those medicines. What was your motivation to collaborate with a company? As a student finishing my studies in chemical engineering, I was intrigued by science and research. Having the opportunity to contribute to novel ideas and developments to the understanding of a given phenomenon, and building new possibilities to exploit that understanding to improve human life, is something that attracts many young students. But as a rather practical person, with a strong feeling for engineering, I was also aware that transformations do not occur from one moment to the next by themselves. Someone needs to put the effort in bringing powerful ideas and technologies to practice in order to demonstrate their benefits and limitations in the real world. I am quite sure that many others before and after me, had and will face the same question: Industry or Academia? Well, with this Baekeland mandate, the answer is both. Which type of work do you perform at which location? What I love about the Baekeland formula is that, today, I share an office with my colleagues from KU Leuven –BioTeC+: an internationally recognized research group at Ghent Technology Campus, founded by Professor Jan Van Impe and with over 25 years of research experience in model-based design, monitoring, optimization, and control of (bio)chemical conversion processes. Tomorrow, I will sit at my desk at Janssen Pharmaceutica, the largest pharmaceutical company in Belgium. With my colleagues at the university, I have the opportunity to discuss fundamental topics related to process modelling, monitoring and optimisation, while with my colleagues from industry I contribute to the continuous improvement of production processes to bring medicines to the patients. What will be the tangible outcomes from your research? Towards the end of my PhD, my goal is to have developed novel and broadly applicable approaches for data-driven modelling of (bio) chemical production processes. These will have been validated directly on the production of medicines and will have resulted in significant improvements that guarantee meeting the stringent quality standards. Meanwhile, I have already obtained significant progress in this direction. For example, I have developed a new method to train tensor-based models that result in more informative models that allow a more robust identification and factorization of the system variability. The more interpretable data-driven models help engineers to identify the root cause for deviations, monitor the processes and offers the opportunity for continuous improvement of these processes. The application of this methodology to a largescale spray-drying unit used in the commercial production of an Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient has resulted in a benefit to Janssen Pharmaceutical in fault identification and quality prediction. Similar applications in other production lines are currently ongoing, with objectives such as process optimisation and real time release. Iason Passaris www.vlaio.be/nl/subsidies-financiering/ baekeland-mandaten 30
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