Elinor Scott

Elinor Scott serves as an Assistant Professor in Biobased Chemistry and Technology at Wageningen University and acts as study advisor for the Biotechnology program (OT Biotechnologie). Her work bridges academic research with industrial applications through the VLAG graduate school, focusing on converting biomass waste into high-value bioproducts.

Her research spans sustainable chemical valorization of waste streams, particularly keratin from poultry feathers and polyhydroxyalkanoates from wastewater. Key methodologies include enzymatic hydrolysis, ultrasound processing, and biocatalysis to develop antimicrobial peptides, drug delivery nanocarriers, and platform chemicals like methyl crotonate. She emphasizes circular economy principles by transforming low-value residues into biomedical and chemical feedstocks.

Recent publications reveal a strategic shift toward biomedical applications of keratin-derived materials, with 64% of her fingerprint dedicated to enzymatic hydrolysis and 100% keratin utilization. Concurrently, she advances waste-to-chemical routes for polyhydroxyalkanoates, demonstrating scalable processes for methyl crotonate production from wastewater streams.

Dr. Scott actively supervises five PhD candidates across critical projects: straw conversion for antimicrobial lipopeptides (Li, Q.), keratin nanocarriers (Qin, X.), haloperoxidase applications (But, A.), PHA chemical synthesis (Spekreijse, J.), and electrodialysis for protein valorization (Teng, Y.). Her NWO-funded research includes eight projects, one currently active, with notable industry collaborations highlighted in media coverage of student competition wins like the 2019 Holland Chemistry Student Competition.

She leads the Biobased Chemistry and Technology group within Wageningen's research ecosystem, integrating fundamental science with process engineering. Current efforts focus on optimizing ultrasound-assisted keratin extraction and developing antimicrobial keratin peptides, with future work targeting scalable biorefinery concepts for heterogeneous biomass feedstocks.