EPSRC and BBSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Engineering Biology

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The Engineering Biology Centre for Doctoral Training (EngBioCDT) is one of nine new CDTs at the University of Bristol, which will equip and nurture engineering and science students, thanks to a nationally-leading £57 million funding boost from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and its Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Engineering biology is one of the five critical technologies predicted to deliver prosperity to the UK as highlighted in the Government’s National Vision for Engineering Biology (December 2023). Sitting at the confluence of Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, AI and Data Science, it has the potential to provide innovative solutions to global challenges for sustainable food, materials and chemicals, combatting climate change, and technologies for improved healthcare, by harnessing biology in new ways and creating biomimetic and engineered living systems capable of surpassing what is possible from single-discipline approaches.

The EngBioCDT, run jointly with the University of Oxford, will provide bespoke cohort-based training with a focus on how engineering biology concepts and technologies can be translated into products with real-world impact. It will include teaching on: modelling and control theory, artificial intelligence and machine learning, gene circuit design, protein design and engineering, and tissue engineering.

The EngBioCDT will train 68 students over five cohorts between 2024 and 2032 in collaboration with over 20 partners including industry, startups, innovation specialists, and national institutes.

The Director of the EngBioCDT, Dr Lucia Marucci, said: “I am so excited to start directing our new Engineering Biology Centre for Doctoral Training in partnership with the University of Oxford, and cannot wait to welcome our new students in September. Many thanks to the EPSRC and BBSRC for funding our programme.”

At Bristol, the CDT will be managed also by Prof Imre Berger, Dr Tom Gorochowski (Deputy Director), Prof Jen McManus and Prof Dek Woolfson.

Dodding & Woolfson labs awarded BBSRC grant for kinesin-1 research

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The Dodding and Woolfson labs (Schools of Biochemistry and Chemistry, University of Bristol) have been awarded a grant by the BBSRC to understand how the kinesin-1 microtubule motor is activated, and to design new peptide-based-reagents to enable control of its activity.

Kinesin-1 motors play critical roles in intracellular transport of vesicles, organelles, protein complexes and mRNAs. They are particularly important for transport within the neuronal axons, and are dysregulated in many neurodegenerative diseases.

This four-year award, commencing in 2025, builds on their existing collaboration and will support two postdoctoral scientists working between the two labs.

For this project (Mechanism and design of allostery in the kinesin-1 complex), the team will aim to obtain a deep mechanistic understanding of the kinesin-1 autoinhibitory mechanism; insight into how cargo engagement induces conformational changes in the complex; and a clear understanding of the nature of active motor-cargo complexes. They will apply the latest protein/peptide design approaches to identify strategies and targets for manipulating kinesin activity, setting the stage for future work to apply these technologies to finely control kinesin-mediated transport in disease states.

Bristol hosts Swiss-British Summit to drive innovation in healthcare and sustainability

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The Bristol BioDesign Institute co-hosted the Synthetic & Engineering Biology British-Swiss Summit at Bristol’s M-Shed on 22 May 2024. The inaugural event was devoted to understanding the opportunities presented by engineering biology technologies to drive innovation in healthcare, forging collaborations between Switzerland and the UK with a focus on environmental sustainability.

Ambassador Markus Leitner makes the opening address

The UK and Switzerland are both science superpowers. Collectively, they host ten of Europe’s top 20 research universities. Switzerland has ranked first in global innovation for the past decade and is home to several world-class research laboratories and multinational companies like Novartis. While the UK boasts a world-leading engineering biology community and forward-thinking policy, exemplified by the UK Government’s National Engineering Biology Vision published in December 2023.

Dr Sara Holland (Potter Clarkson), Dr Chrysi Sergaki (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) and Prof Imre Berger (University of Bristol) discuss commercialising research

A Memorandum of Understanding signed in November 2022 between the UK and Switzerland builds on a longstanding history of collaboration between the two countries, with detailed aspirations to encourage future cooperation in ‘deep science’ and ‘deep tech’ areas such as engineering biology.

The Summit, organised in partnership with the Swiss Business Hub UK & Ireland, the BioIndustry Association and Lucideon, aimed to bring together academic thought leaders and representatives from the life science and pharmaceutical industries. These included key Government officials, including members of the UK Government’s newly appointed Engineering Biology Steering Committee regulators, specialist start-up incubators such as Science Creates (Bristol) and BaseLaunch (Basel), and focused investment firms to identify bilateral opportunities for commercialisation through innovation, and policy and diplomacy in science and innovation.

His Excellency Markus Leitner, Ambassador of Switzerland to the United Kingdom said: “The United Kingdom and Switzerland are uniquely placed to work together on this frontier of scientific discovery and technological innovation.

“Bringing together scientists, industry leaders and start-up entrepreneurs from both countries will foster the exchange of ideas, forge new partnerships, and catalyse new initiatives that will shape the future of synthetic and engineering biology.”

Anike Te chairs debate on cell engineering

The Summit took a deep dive into future perspectives in cell engineering, bioprocessing and scale up, AI-driven solutions in synthetic and engineering biology, and accelerating the translation of fundamental research to commercial uptake.

Anike Te, Aegis Professor of Engineering Biology at the University of Bristol and Chief Strategy Officer at Lucideon, added: “Innovation is essential for solving the global challenges we face today. Engineering biology has the potential to provide many of these solutions. The UK and Switzerland are important countries for innovation and it is inspiring to see more collaboration in synthetic and engineering biology.”

Tay Salimullah during his opening keynote address

Inspiring keynote talks were presented by Tay Salimullah (right), VP, Head US & Global Commercial, Value & Access, and Member of the Executive Committee at Novartis Gene Therapies and Dr Harry Destecroix, founder of Science Creates and co-founder of Ziylo, the hugely successful University of Bristol spin-out company.

Spotlight pitches from UK and Swiss engineering biology start-ups highlighted some of the most recent innovations entering the market.

(All images: First Avenue Photography)

(The news story was first published by University of Bristol)

BBI gives evidence to the Lords Science & Technology Committee

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BBI Co-Director Dr Lucia Marucci gave evidence to the House of Lords Science & Technology Committee as part of their inquiry into engineering biology.

Lucia, Director of the EngBioCDT, spoke alongside Prof Tom Ellis (Imperial), following evidence from Prof Susan Rosser (Edinburgh), Prof Paul Freemont (Imperial) and Dr Carolina Grandellis (Earlham Institute). Evidence has also been given by Will Milligan, CEO of Bristol-based start up Extracellular.

The committee discussed timely opportunities presented by the confluence of advances in AI and modelling with bionics, some of the regulatory barriers to engineering biology innovations, and the scale up challenges faced by the UK’s engineering biology start ups.

The BBI and Policy Bristol will be submitting evidence to the Committee’s open call for evidence.

UK engineering biology delegation visits Japan 

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Ross Anderson (Professor of Biochemistry, University of Bristol) travelled to Japan as part of a Department for Science, Innovation and Technology delegation that met with a range of Japanese Engineering Biology stakeholders (academics, startups/SMEs, industry, funders, policymakers) to promote closer cooperation between the two countries.

He participated in a RRI workshop, and a UTokyo-hosted panel discussions on EngBio capacity and training, visited the labs of Professor Akihiko Kondo, and Professor Kouhei Tsumoto, and had meetings with the Japan Bioindustry Association, and NEDO.

Engineering Biology Mission Award success for BBI researchers

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Two teams from the Bristol BioDesign Institute have been awarded funding from the UKRI – BBSRC Engineering Biology Technology Mission Fund call:

CYBER: Cyanobacteria Engineering for Restoring Environments (Principal Investigator: Dr Thomas Gorochowski)
CYBER aims to develop the foundational multidisciplinary tools needed to de-risk environmentally focused engineering biology and ultimately support its future deployment into real-world ecosystems. It brings together researchers from the Universities of Bristol (lead), Newcastle and Edinburgh, plus the National Measurements Laboratory (NML), NIST, Basecamp, Cultivarium, Bactobio, and Gitlife to improve the trustworthiness of engineered biology for environmental applications.

Haemotoxic and cytotoxic snake venom metalloproteinases – production, enzymatic specificity, snakebite treatment, and biomedical use (Principal Investigator: Prof Christiane Berger-Schaffitzel)
The team will establish robust production of snake venom metalloproteinase (SVMPs) toxins ready for use to develop next generation toxin-specific therapies for tackling snakebite envenoming. SVMPs also exhibit functional specificities desirable for biomedical purposes, as several are used as the basis for anti-platelet drugs or standards for the clinical diagnosis of bleeding disorders. The team will use recombinant, native and engineered toxins to identify new platelet inhibitors that block specific platelet surface receptors that are known drug targets. The project team includes ADDovenom colleagues Professor Nick Casewell (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine) as Co-I, and Johara Stringari (University of Bristol) as Researcher Co-I.

Applications open for Engineering Biology CDT

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Deadline: 19 April 2024

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research/engineering-biology/

Are you interested in how synthetic biology concepts and technologies can be translated into real-world impact?

Applications are now open for PhDs in Engineering Biology, as part of the EPSRC BBSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Engineering Biology (EngBioCDT), run jointly by the University of Bristol and the University of Oxford. It will provide bespoke cohort-based training with a focus on how synthetic biology concepts and technologies can be translated into products with real-world impact.

Society faces major global challenges including a need for sustainable food, materials and chemicals, solutions to combat climate change, and innovative technologies for improved healthcare. Engineering Biology (EngBio) is an emerging field at the confluence of the Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, AI and Data Science. It has the potential to provide innovative solutions to these challenges by harnessing biology in new ways and creating biomimetic and engineered living systems capable of surpassing what is possible from single-discipline approaches.

After training in the fundamentals of mathematics, biology, engineering and computing, and undertaking team-based problem-solving projects, you will complete two short research projects, one of which will develop into your substantive PhD project. Throughout the course, you will undertake bespoke training in innovation and commercialisation, responsible innovation, EDI and bioethics, and career development.

Each year, a summer school will take place in June/July which will include talks from engineering biology leaders, student pitches from innovation in engineering biology projects, and outreach projects.

Through close links with our industrial partners, and activities such as industrial placements, mentorship and translational training, the CDT will empower students to deliver EngBio solutions to real-world applications through skills and knowledge training.

Further info for applicants:

SynBioBeta reports on ‘Open-endedness in synthetic biology’ paper

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A paper co-authored by BBI Co-Director Thomas Gorochowski has been featured in a news story on the SynBioBeta website.

Breaking the Mold: Embracing Uncertainty for Enhanced Bio-Innovation reports on Michiel Stock and Thomas Gorochowski’s article: Open-endedness in synthetic biology: A route to continual innovation for biological design, which has been published in Science Advances.

Thomas tells SynBioBeta: “When we try to design a complex biological process, it’s often tempting to just tweak something that partially works rather than take the risk of trying something completely new. In this work, we highlight that in these situations, the best solutions often come from unexpected directions because we don’t always fully understand how everything works. With biology, there are lots of unknowns, and so we need a vast and diverse toolkit of building blocks to ensure we have the best chance of finding the solution we need.”

  • Open-endedness in synthetic biology: a route to continual innovation for biological design
    Michiel Stock & Thomas E. Gorochowski
    Science Advances (2024), Vol 10, Issue 3, eadi3621
    https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adi3621

BBI features in UK Government’s National Vision for Engineering Biology

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The Bristol BioDesign Institute has contributed to, and is featured in, the UK Government’s National Vision for Engineering Biology, published on 5 December 2023.

The document outlines the government’s vision for “a broad, rich engineering biology ecosystem that can safely develop and commercialise the many opportunities to come from the technology.”

In a case study in the ‘World-leading R&D’ section (page 21), Bristol is described as a “thriving ecosystem for engineering biology” with a “booming” local bioeconomy. Both the BBI and the Max Planck-Bristol Centre for Minimal Biology are mentioned in this section, alongside BrisSynBio, eight University of Bristol spinouts, and Science Creates.

SBUK 2023 takes place in Bristol

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Over 300 people from 45 institutions in 11 countries attended the Synthetic Biology 2023 conference in Bristol on 6-7 November, organised by the Biochemical Society and the Bristol BioDesign Institute.

We would like to thank all the invited speakers (Prof Patrick Cai, Prof Tanja Kortemme, Prof Petra Schwille, Prof Andreas Plückthun, Prof Susan Rosser, Prof Seraphine Wegner, Prof Julius Lucks, Dr David Riglar, Dr Nicole Wheeler and Dr Gitta Neufang), the oral and poster presenters, the session chairs, the team from the Biochemical Society, and everyone else who attended for their help in making the event a great success.

Themes covered at the conference included biomolecular design and engineering; cell and system-level design; synthetic and minimal cells; data-centric bioengineering, and applications across industry.

Dek Woolfson presents Stephen Wallace with the Colworth Medal.Congratulations to Prof Stephen Wallace, who was awarded the prestigious Colworth Medal and gave a talk on the development of ‘plastic-eating E. coli that can efficiently turn polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste into adipic acid, which is used to make nylon materials, drugs and fragrances’.

Further congratulations to the oral and poster prize recipients: