Position Title
Associate Professor
GBSE Graduate Faculty Advisor
- Biological and Agricultural Engineering
Research
Dr. Fan’s primary research interests are in advancing technologies for production of fuels and chemicals from renewable resources, including metabolic engineering and biocatalyst development; fermentation process development and modeling; biological and chemical process design and economic evaluation. Current research is focused on novel processes for ethanol and isobutanol production from cellulosic materials.
Selected Publications
Hildebrand, A., Szewczyk, E., Lin, H., Kasuga, T., and Fan, Z. Engineering Neurospora crassa for improved cellobiose and cellobionate production. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, in press
Szewczyk, E., Kasuga, T., and Fan, Z. (2014) A new variant of self-excising β-recombinase/six cassette for repetitive gene deletion and homokaryon purification in Neurospora crassa, Journal of Microbiological Methods, 100, 17-23.
Shao, D., Atungulu, G. G., Pan, Z., Yue, Y., Zhang, A., and Fan, Z. (2014) Characteristics of isolation and functionality of protein from tomato pomace produced with different industrial processing methods, Food and Bioprocess Technology, 7: 532-541.
Wu, W., Kasuga, T., Xiong, X., Ma, D., and Fan, Z. (2013) Location and contribution of individual beta-glucosidases from Neurospora crassa to total beta-glucosidase activity Archives of Microbiology, 195:823-9
Hildebrand, A., Schlacta, T., Warmack, R., Kasuga, T., and Fan, Z. (2013) Engineering Escherichia coli for improved ethanol yield from gluconate, Journal of Biotechnology, 168: 101-106.
Wu, W. and Z. Fan. (2013) A general inhibition kinetic model for ethanol production using a novel carbon source: sodium gluconate.Bioprocess Biosystems Engineering, 36: 1631-1640
Williams, K., Zheng, Y., McGarvey, J., Fan, Z., and Zhang, R. (2013) Characterization of several Clostridia for production of ethanol and volatile fatty acids from plant-based substrates, The Internet Journal of Microbiology, In press.
Szewczyk, E., Kasuga, T., and Fan, Z. (2013) Efficient sequential repetitive gene deletions in Neurospora crassa, employing self-excising beta-recombinase/six cassette., Journal of Microbiological Methods, 92, 236-243.
Wu, W., Hildebrand, A., Kasuga, T., Xiong, X., and Fan, Z. (2013) Direct cellobiose production from cellulose using sextuple beta-glucosidase gene deletion Neurospora crassa mutants, Enzyme and Microbial Technology, 52, 184-189.
Zhang, R., Xu, C., Shen, Q., Kasuga, T., Wu, W., Szewczyk, E., Ma, D., and Fan, Z. (2013) Characterization of two cellobiose dehydrogenases and comparison of their contributions to total activity in Neurospora crassa, International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation, 82, 24-32.
Williams, K., Zheng, Y., McGarvey, J., Fan, Z., and Zhang, R. (2013) Ethanol and volatile fatty acid production from lignocellulose by Clostridium cellulolyticum, ISRN Biotechnology, Article ID 137835.
Fan, Z., Wu, W., Hildebrand, A., Kasuga, T., Zhang, R., and Xiong, X. (2012) A novel biochemical route for fuels and chemicals production from cellulosic biomass, PLoS One, 7, e31693.
Zhang, R., Fan, Z., and Kasuga, T. (2011) Expression of cellobiose dehydrogenase from Neurospora crassa in Pichia pastoris and its purification and characterization, Protein Expression and Purification, 75, 63-69.
Budhavaram, N. K., and Fan, Z. (2009) Production of lactic acid from paper sludge using acid-tolerant, thermophilic Bacillus coagulan strains, Bioresource Technology, 100, 5966-5972.