Conversion of Renewable Biomass into Bioproducts

Dr. Majher I. Sarker has earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the Department of Applied Chemistry & Chemical Technology. University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. And his Ph.D. from Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI in Organic Chemistry. In his professional career, he worked as a Q.C. Chemist in an ISO certified ACI pharmaceutical company, did research in Computational Chemistry in Kyungpook National University, South Korea, Postdoctoral research in
Medicinal Chemistry at Marquette before joining Eastern Regional Research Center (ERRC), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA in 2013. Currently, he is working as a Research Scientist in Sustainable Biofuels and Co-Products Research Unit at ERRC, where he is primarily working on food safety and utilization of
biomass related projects. Dr. Sarker received a number of prestigious awards including ARS Scientist of the year award, Best paper award, Gold Medal Award from Federal Executive Board. He has published numerous research articles, US-patents

and books.

Dr. LinShu Liu is the Lead Scientist and Research Chemist of the Eastern Regional Research Center, United States Department of Agriculture located in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania. Dr. Liu's research interests fall in three areas: (1) Controlled release of biologically active substances for biomedical uses and for food protection and preservation; (2) New utilities of agricultural byproducts; and (3) The interplay of diet and human gut microbiota. Dr. Liu obtained Ph.D. in Polymer
Chemistry in Kyoto University in Japan in 1990, then a Postdoctoral Associate with Prof. R. Langer in MIT. He authored or co-authored 27 patents, 130 research papers in peer-reviewed journals, more than 200 proceeding papers, and 10 books. He is the Foreign Member of the Tajikistan Academy of Sciences, Republic of
Tajikistan, the adjunct Professors of Tajik Agrarian University (Dushanbe, Tajikistan), and Washington State University (Pullmen, WA, USA).

Dr. Madhav P. Yadav is a research chemist at

USDA-ARS, ERRC, Wyndmoor, PA. His main accomplishments are development of Bio-based Fiber Gums, Super Corn Fiber gum, Insoluble Biomass Gel, Cellulosic Arabinoxylan Fiber, CFG-protein conjugate etc. Dr. Yadav earned his MS degree in Biochemistry from Eastern Illinois University, PhD degree in Carbohydrate Chemistry from Southern Illinois University and worked as a post-doc at Purdue University and a research faculty at University of California, Riverside before he joined USDA in 2004. Dr. Yadav
is on the editorial board of Food Hydrocolloids, Food Hydrocolloids for Health and International Journal of Agriculture and Food Research. He is an active participant of International Hydrocolloids Conference, Gums/Stabilizers for the Food Industry Conference and American Chemical Society. He is the
author of over 115 peer reviewed publications, book chapters and proceedings and has attended and given invited talks at more than 45 national and international meetings.

Dr. Yosief received his BSc degree

in Pharmacy from the University of Asmara, Eritrea and he worked as a teaching assistant at the Orotta School of Medicine, Eritrea. He received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Cincinnati, OH. His graduate research work was focused on the synthesis of carbohydrates and their application for pathogen and toxins detection. After earning his doctoral degree, he was NIH sponsored postdoc at the University of Massachusetts, Boston where he worked on the design and synthesis of
imidazo-pyridine- and dihydropteridinone-based bromodomain inhibitors. Before joining USDA-ARS in November 2018, he worked as an adjunct chemistry faculty at the Cincinnati State Technical Community College. As a USDA-Postdoc, he is engaged in modifying biomass and byproducts into value-added products also in
designing environmentally friendly formulations for hide preservation. His graduate and postdoctoral research works have led to several publications and patents.

Dr. Syed Ammar Hussain has earned his PhD

degree from Shandong University of Technology. His doctoral study focused on medium-chain fatty acid generating cell factories using metabolic engineering methods and fermentation optimization technologies. He spent a semester as a visiting scholar at the University of Texas in San Antonio. Following that, he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at USDA-ARS, where he worked on a number of projects which principally include 1) identification (NGS) and decontamination of food borne pathogens,
2) Use of different chemical inducers to enhance the microbial biomass, 3) conversion of agriculture feedstock into useful products. He is now working as a Post Doc Research Fellow at the US Army DEVCOM Solider Center in MA, where he has the opportunity to explore the nutrient-gut microbiota
interplay and eventually unravel the processes and metabolites by which gut bacteria regulate human physiology and behavior.