It has been another very busy year for the Bristol BioDesign Institute. It began with the launch of the Bristol Centre for Engineering Biology (BrisEngBio), which is funding eight proof of concept, and four discovery projects. A cohort of 12 PDRAs will be working on these projects, and will be offered a programme of training to develop their innovation skills. We have also welcomed Kerstin Kinkelin (Innovation Manager) and Wayne Powell (Administrator) to the core BBI team, to work closely with Kathleen Sedgley (Scientific Manager).
We have organised seven BBI seminars, the inaugural CuPiD network meeting in Alpbach, the annual meeting of the EU ADDovenom Consortium for the development of novel antivenoms, and have co-organised, attended and presented at many other conferences and workshops. BBI researchers have also published in the Nature journals, Science, JACS and more this year. Members of the BBI also contributed to the University of Bristol’s School of Chemistry being ranked 1st, Engineering 6th, and Biochemistry and Biological Sciences 8th in the UK in the 2021 REF Assessment.
For the BBI Management team, Dek Woolfson has been awarded a BBSRC sLoLa Grant with other synthetic biologists at the Universities of Edinburgh and Manchester, Imre Berger was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and helped Halo Therapeutics win an OBN Award, Lucia Marucci received a BBSRC Breakthrough Award, and Tom Gorochowski co-established a Turing Interest Group in ‘Data-centric biological design and engineering,’ which holds its first event in March 2023.
There’s been exciting new research around transfusions of lab grown red blood cells, a potential anti-cancer therapy using artificial protocells, a blood test to detect brain tumours, a DNA repair-kit, and the use of bacteria to mimic the complex structure and function of living cells, as well as developments in the understanding, and potential treatment, of SARS-CoV-2.
There will be much more to come throughout 2023, and we are looking forward to beginning the year with the BrisEngBio Annual meeting, and BrisEngBio Connect Partnership and Networking Event.