Arnau Sala is a biotechnologist and holds a PhD in Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering from the Autonomous University of Barcelona since 2022. His thesis focused on the optimization and scaling-up of the production of fungally derived biopesticides by solid-state fermentation (SSF) of food waste, defining the key process parameters, developing production strategies up to a 22 L scale, and demonstrating the effectiveness of the resulting biopesticide product. He is currently carrying out his second postdoctoral position with a Juan de la Cierva fellowship at the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), and is affiliated with the GICOM group, the DEQBA and the UAB as an Associated Researcher and Teaching Collaborator.
His research focuses on the use of fungi to obtain bioproducts via SSF, the optimization and scaling-up of these processes, the effect of production parameters on the quantity and quality of the product obtained, the application of these products in a regenerative agriculture context, and the assessment of their ecotoxicological properties. In the field of SSF process scale-up, he focuses on the use of thermotolerant strains as a solution to the inherent heat generation problems of SSF. He has taken part in several GICOM projects, including BIOPRO (doctoral thesis) and FERTILAB (first postdoc).
In addition to GICOM and CREAF, he has carried out part of his research (including doctoral and postdoctoral stays) in the Insect Pathology and Biological Control group (IPBC), Section for Organismal Biology (SOBI) at the University of Copenhagen, with the main objective of expanding the microbiological knowledge of fungi with biopesticidal activity to be used in biopesticide production via SSF, and also to learn about the application of biopesticide products on pest insects. Before his first postdoc, he worked at the Eurecat research centre in the Waste, Energy and Environmental Impact (WEEI) unit within the waste line, where he participated in numerous projects focused on the treatment and valorisation of different wastes such as compost, lignocellulosic residues, PLA and cellulose, notably including participation in the European HEREWEAR project (H2020), among others.