This webinar, which took place on 22 October 2024, saw Kerstin Kinkelin (Bristol BioDesign Institute), Maddie Cass (BIA), and Anike Te (Lucideon) discuss the report and its recommendations.
These findings are intended for a variety of stakeholders with the aim of moving forward joint Swiss and UK challenges in the field of synthetic and engineering biology, and – in light of the climate crisis – emphasising the urgent need to accelerate the commercialisation of these technologies.
Vincent du Vigneaud was an American biochemist known for his work with sulfur compounds and peptides. He won the 1955 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the cyclic peptide, oxytocin.
Engineering Biology Mission Award Holders Professors Thomas Gorochowski and Christiane Berger-Schaffitzel, Aegis Professor of Engineering Biology Anike Te, and BBI Scientific Manager Kathleen Sedgley were attended the UKRI Technology Missions Fund (TMF) Engineering Biology Programme Convening Event in Cardiff on Thursday 3 October.
The two Mission Awards were both highlighted amongst the UKRI portfolio:
Haemotoxic and cytotoxic snake venom metalloproteinases – production, enzymatic specificity, snakebite treatment, and biomedical use(PI: 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.
CYBER – Cyanobacteria Engineering for Restoring Environments (PI: 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.
Anike Te (Chief Strategy Officer, Lucideon) joined a panel of experts discussing pathways to commercialisation.
The BBI and the Engineering Biology Centre for Doctoral Training both featured in Bristol’s ‘AI University of the Year’ submission, which highlighted our research “using surrogate machine learning models to approximate the behaviour of complex mechanistic models to describe complex, interconnected, biological processes; creating new protein structures with higher success rates than have previously been achievable to date; and improving the quality and reusability of open source tools that can apply advanced statistical techniques when processing experimental data.”
Professor Annela Seddon (Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor of Research & Innovation for the Faculty of Science and Engineering) said: “We have a long history of AI research, innovation and education at the University of Bristol and we have always believed in the transformative power of AI to improve lives.”
Dr Jess Cross, who works as an EPSRC Fellow across Biochemistry and Chemistry in collaboration with the Mark Dodding and Dek Woolfson labs, was awarded the best selected oral presentation at the 37th European Peptide Symposium in Florence last week. This is one of the major meetings on peptide science.
Jess presented work from the Woolfson and Dodding labs using de novo protein design to allosterically regulate kinesin-1 motors in cells. This work has recently been published in Nature Chemical Biology.
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.
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.
“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)
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.
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.
Engineering Biology Mission Award Holders Professors 
BBI Co-Director Dr Lucia Marucci 
(Professor of Biochemistry, University of Bristol) travelled to Japan as part of a