Abstract:
Benefits of probiotic bacteria and microbiomes in treating a variety of health conditions, especially digestive-, inflammatory-, allergic-, cancer- and obesity-causing diseases are also bringing this beneficial bacterium into the forefront of mainstream media. However, it is still unclear on their mechanism of action and the use of molecular tools is of paramount important to assess the probiotic properties. Unraveling the probiotic and microbiota mechanisms of action could open a new era for further enhancement of various applications and looking ahead this field holds immense promise for the future in delivering novel biotherapies in different fields. We found the tremendous metabolic activities and high specific enzyme activities in cells of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, thus we genetically overproduced few probiotic enzymes such as aminopeptidase, esterase/lipase, lactase (beta-gal), bile salt hydrolase, and linoleate isomerase, etc for overproducing bioactive molecules and for positively influencing overall human health by using animal and human models.
Biography:
Professor Byong H. Lee is currently a Scientific Advisor at SportBiomics (CA, USA) and Heilenex Pharma Inc. (Toronto, Canada). Byong has worked as Professor (AAFC seconded Chair) in Departments of Microbiology/Immunology and Food Science/Agric Chemistry (1986-2011) at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He has been an Invited Distinguished Professor in the Department of Food Science and Biotechnology at Kangwon National University and Adviser at MSC Co. Ltd (2014-2019) in Korea. In addition, Byong has also worked as Distinguished Professor in Schools of Biotechnology and Food Science at China Jiangnan University (2011-2014) and Principal Scientist and Head of Biotechnology at Food R/D Center at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, AAFC (1982-1986) and Research Director at Sensient Flavor (Former Champlain Industry, 1980-1982) in Canada. Byong received his degrees at the University of British Columbia (MSc, Microbiology/Immunology), McGill University (M.Sc, Food Microbiology) and Laval University (PhD, Food Biotechnology) in Canada. Byong also studied his PhD for two years in Microbiology/Immunology at the University of Pennsylvania/Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia (US) as his Canada-US exchange program. Byong spent his sabbaticals as an Invited Professor in the UK (Food Research Institute/U. of Reading, 1991-1992), France (INRA/U. de Bourgone, 1997-1998), Ireland (Teagasc Food Research Centre, 2001-2002) and Korea (Seoul National University, 2007-2008).
Byong has published 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 135 other proceedings, 4 textbooks on “Fundamentals of Food Biotechnology (1st and 2nd Edition in English, Spanish, Wiley, 420 and 518 pages, 1996, 2015)”, and another textbook (Advanced Fermentation and Cell Technology, Vol. 1 and Vol 2, Wiley, 960 pages, 2021), 38 book chapters, and 16 patents/inventions. He has delivered 127 invited speeches (often as keynote or plenary) at international conferences, received several awards, and currently serves on the editorial board of seven journals. Over his career, Byong has supervised more than 100 graduate students and post-docs at McGill and other universities.
