WEEK 2

WEEK 2

  During the week we received an email from Nutriplus. What we all first thought was spam mail turned out to be the mock company that Barry had set up for us to be a part of, this is the company that our Nutraceutical products will be under. The email contained a memo informing us to make ourselves into groups of three, with the aim of being diverse enough to deal with all future problems of creating a product. We settled on our group and so the journey of making a product began.

One of our members suffers from Crohns’ disease and pointed out that there is no specific product for prevention or treatment of it. This was the start of our product. We weren’t 100% what the product would be, but we had decided that we would aim it in the direction of Crohns’ disease. on Friday we meet Barry to discuss the idea, he helped to focus the aim of our research, which is really the hardest part of the whole thing. It’s hard to find an answer to something when you don’t really know what you are looking for. The past week has been spent trying to understand Chrons’ disease but now we must focus on the work that has been done as a treatment for it. In the lecture class we were given a brief overview of the bioprocess on a broad unspecific view. Before the lecture had started I had a basic understanding of it all; the use of manipulated natural material to produce a medicinal product. But the lecture shows that it is a whole lot more diverse than I had perceived. I actually felt a bit bewildered by the sheer size of the industry and the complexity of the process. We’re hardly expected to know enough about all this to produce a product. The reality of having to do some study/research around the lectures has come to the front this week. 

WEEK 1

WEEK 1 

In our first class of Bioprocessing the room was packed to the brim. Everyone had turned up to get a taste for the module before choosing it or Molecular Gastronomy. To start it all off we played some games. It seemed like a monumental waste of time but in fairness to Barry it did serve a purpose. It brought about the reality that this module would be mainly based around critical thinking, forming opinions in the class and one particular game which gave an indication of how we would need to deal with the different scales within the Bioprocessing Industry.

Barry ended the class by explaining the different aspects of the module. He showed an enthusiasm for the new way of learning that is driven by the students themselves. This seemed to scare a lot of people including myself, I wasn’t sure if I shared the same for bioprocessing or learning for that matter. Not being told to purely memorise information handed to us on a sheet was going to be a change. In this module we will be setting up our own mock company with a new Nutraceutical product that will be produced using the processes we learn about in lectures. This would require a lot of research and understanding of different techniques used to get a desired product.

Over the summer I completed my work placement in a brewery so bioprocessing does interest me, I feel that the module is a good opportunity to get further knowledge in this area and hopefully the placement over the summer will allow me to add some experience to our group work.