TC 8.4. Biosystems and Bioprocesses

Welcome to the webpage of 
the IFAC Technical Committee on Biosystems and Bioprocesses

The TC on Biosystems and Bioprocesses has been an active TC over the last decades. Recent years have seen an increased importance of modeling, control and automation applications in life sciences and biotechnological processes, and the emergence of new areas, such as systems and synthetic biology (a.k.a engineering biology) that cannot be understood without the application of methodologies and tools drawn from the Automatic Control community. These include:

  • Multi-scale and multi-omics data integration, dynamics and modeling
  • Parameters and state estimation
  • Fault diagnosis and monitoring
  • Data mining tools
  • Sensors
  • Feedback control
  • Scheduling, coordination, optimization

with applications, among others, in:

  • Monitoring and feedback control of (photo)bioreactors
  • Observers and software sensors for estimation of kinetic rates
  • Microalgae production processes
  • Wastewater treatment processes
  • Bioenergy
  • Systems biology for (red, green, blue, and white) biotechnology
  • Food engineering
  • Biological networks inference and modeling (signaling, regulation, metabolic)
  • Kinetic modeling of metabolic pathways
  • Optimization of fluxes in metabolic networks (metabolic flux analysis)
  • Dynamic regulation of gene expression and metabolic pathways
  • Design of synthetic gene systems and circuits
  • Modelling and control of microbial communities
  • Analysis, identification, and control of biologically motivated nonlinear systems

The TC sponsors and co-sponsors two leading conferences covering these topics:

  • FOSBE (Foundations of Engineering in Biology, Fostering Systems Biology in Engineering)
  • DYCOPS-CAB (Dynamics and Control of Process Systems, including Biosystems)