Grant: Industrial Research Chairs for Colleges Grants

Sarnia-Lambton is a significant North American petrochemical and refining complex for the production of petroleum and petrochemical products, plastics, synthetic rubber and chemicals. To diversify the local economy, an effort was launched to build new industrial clusters, specifically focused on sustainable chemicals and green chemistry. The "Bio Hybrid Chemistry Cluster", combines agriculture and chemical capacity for producing renewable and green-based materials and chemicals. To support this cluster, Lambton College founded the Bioindustrial Process Research Centre (BPRC) and the Centre for Industrial Material Development (CIMD) to support bio focused companies to develop new and optimize existing products, materials, technologies and processes.Amongst the numerous SMEs that these centres have collaborated with, 15 focused on development and production of natural health products from sustainable and/or green materials as well as those using advanced biotechnology to develop innovative products. Also, with legalization of Cannabis an innovation need for research and development for new products and technologies has been created. Lambton proposes to enhance the Applied Research and Development capacity and the region's vision to grow North America's first Bio Hybrid Chemistry Cluster by establishing an Advanced Biotechnology and Natural Health Products Research Group led by Dr. Baoling Chen. Dr. Baoling Chen has demonstrated her strong academic and research background at Lambton College through leading many collaborative research projects as well as managing the BPRC. Through the IRCC position, she will establish an Advanced Biotechnology and Natural Health Products Research Group and lead seven committed collaborative projects with others in the development for this highly sought after research group.