The coordinator Thomas Bley studied mathematics at the Technische Universität Dresden (Germany). From 1975 until 1990 he worked as a scientist at the Institute of Biotechnology (IBT) at the Academy of Science of the GDR in Leipzig. He received his doctorate in 1981 and his habilitation in 1990 with theses in the field of modeling microbial population dynamics. In the following years, he was the head of the Division of Biotechnology at the University of Leipzig. Since 1996, he has held the chair of bioprocess engineering and is the head of this course of study at the Dresden University of Technology. Prof. Bley is a full member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) and of the Saxon Academy of Sciences. He is an active member of numerous organizations and technical committees in the field of bioprocess engineering. In 2008 and 2011 Prof. Bley was elected for the review board of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for bioprocess engineering. Prof. Bley's main fields of research are white (industrial) biotechnology, biomonitoring and biosignals, dynamics of microbial populations, modeling and control of bioprocesses, flow cytometry, and plant cell cultivation.

The Institute of Food Technology and Bioprocess Engineering belongs to the Faculty of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the Technische Universität Dresden, one of the 11 Universities of Excellence in Germany.

Bioprocess engineering bridges the gap between basic research in new biotechnology and its industrial application. Education, research and engineering in life sciences are the main resultant goals. Bioprocess engineers should be able to use the language of new biotechnology as well as the language of chemical and process engineering. Most scientists working in the field of molecular biotechnology and biotechnomics do not believe that process engineering, modeling and up-scaling is real science and therefore absolutely necessary for success in bio-economy. It is an immense challenge and our duty to set up new standards.

The aim of research in bioprocess engineering is the quantitative investigation of the activities of microorganisms and cells of higher organisms in a technical environment (bioreactor). Using this information it is possible to develop metabolic models, models for population dynamics and process models. Institute of Food Technology and Bioprocess Engineering believes that biology is - like physics - a quantitative science. To this end the institute is committed to handling and processing biological systems in a very rational manner, in a way that is based strictly on mathematical modeling.

The main practical fields of research at Institute of Food Technology and Bioprocess Engineering are biomonitoring (flow cytometry), white (industrial) biotechnology (biosynthesis of valuable products from whey using yeasts), plant cell biotechnology and energy biotechnology.