research.

In 2020 I described a research program in biological engineering with five lines: bioprocess engineering, bioprospecting, molecular and synthetic biology, reverse engineering of microorganisms, and nanobiotechnology. All five are still open. Bioprospecting, for example, went through Colombian sourdoughs, native yeasts such as CW-12 and the Semilla Enel, the bacterial consortium we grew from samples of the El Paraíso Hydroelectric Power Plant for its ecofilter, and today it continues in the master’s project of Brayan Stick Chacón Fontecha, who studies extracts of native medicinal plants for topical formulations, and in the doctorate of Carlos Yesiel González Murcia, who looks for brewing yeasts in oil palm fruits. Four lines joined those five, out of the problems we kept running into: sustainability and the circular economy, multisensory experience design, computational biology and AI-driven design, and research on my teaching. Nanobiotechnology, in turn, grew into smart biomaterials.

Each line is held up by a group of people. What I bring is much the same from one line to the next: the biological engineering question, the students who work on it every day and, often, the funding. What the others bring changes with the line: the materials and devices of Juan Carlos Cruz, the clinical genetics of the Institute for the Study of Inborn Errors of Metabolism at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, the consumer psychology of Felipe Reinoso-Carvalho, the food science of Óscar Álvarez, the modeling of Andrés Fernando González Barrios and Nicolás Ríos Ratkovich, and Enel’s plant and data.