Game-changing gene therapies are focus of £14m research hub

The University is to establish a new research and innovation hub focused on developing gene therapies to help treat or cure disease.

The £14.25m Engineered Genetic Control Systems for Advanced Therapeutics Hub will develop improved gene therapy techniques for patients with serious conditions.

It will create new biological tools to improve the effectiveness and safety of gene therapies, testing them in cancers, cardiovascular disease and rare diseases.

The hub, led by Professor Susan Rosser, will bring together a multidisciplinary team from the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, Imperial College London and the CRUK Scotland Institute.

Research hubs

Professor Susan Rosser

The new centre is one of six announced as part of a £100m UK-wide investment in engineering biology. 

Funding for the new hubs was provided by the UKRI Technology Missions Fund, with support from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). 

Researchers from the School of Biological Sciences will lead or be involved in three of the six new hubs.  

Professor Louise Horsfall is involved in a hub, led by Cranfield University, to develop the natural abilities of micro-organisms in cleaning up our planet.

Professor Stephen Wallace is involved in a hub, led by the University of Portsmouth, to develop new biological technologies to convert plastic waste into high-value chemicals and products.

The Environmental Biotechnology Innovation Centre (EBIC), led by Cranfield University, will enhance and develop the natural abilities of micro-organisms in cleaning up our planet. 

The hub will find ways to develop micro-organisms to target and reduce the negative impacts of polluting substances in the environment, like plastic waste, metals and oil.

Micro-organisms will not only be used to clean up hazardous and toxic pollutants, but also to help regenerate or recycle waste into valuable resources.

The team will use advanced techniques from synthetic biology, biotechnology and environmental engineering to create entirely new organisms or enhance the functions of existing ones.

Professor Louise Horsfall, from the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Engineering Biology will bring expertise in biotechnology and synthetic biology to the hub. Her lab will leading on research to engineer biological systems for the recovery of metals from wastewater.

Part of this will involve working with social scientists to explore the social, ethical, and environmental implications of engineering biology to inform decision-making and promote the integration of these research advances. 

Louise's research group are also contributing to the hub's research on microbial fermentation for value-added products.

The hub brings together scientists from Brunel University London, the University of Essex, Bangor University, the University of Southampton, the University of East Anglia, the University of Glasgow, Heriot-Watt University and Newcastle University. 


I’m excited to be part of this exceptional team addressing urgent environmental challenges. Engineering biology is a critical technology in our toolset to target pollutants, and even provides us with sustainable routes to convert waste and contaminants into valuable resources.

Professor Louise Horsfall Chair of Sustainable Biotechnology

Preventing Plastic Pollution with Engineering Biology (P3EB) Mission Hub will developing new biological technologies to convert plastic waste into high-value chemicals and products.

Like plastics, many valuable chemicals - including fuels, medicines, flavour and fragrances - are currently produced from oil, a non-renewable natural resource.

Relying on dwindling supplies of fossil fuels to produce chemicals by traditional synthetic processes requires lots of energy and is a key driver of industrial CO2 emissions worldwide.

The hub will enable plastics to be repurposed when they reach their end of life by finding environmentally friendly ways of breaking down and reusing its chemical building blocks.

By engineering enzymes and microbes, experts in the hub will find new ways to turn these chemical building blocks into high-value chemicals, reducing the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.

The approach could transform a range of industries - helping them to tackle waste, develop more sustainable production methods and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Professsor Stephen Wallace’s lab, within the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Engineering Biology, will be the lead for plastic upcycling within the Hub and will work closely with Dr Joanna Sadler’s group. 

Global plastic production is expected to double by 2050, making plastic waste one of the most urgent environmental challenges of our time – posing a threat to the planet and human health.

Stephen and Joanna’s labs are already finding ways to reprogramme bacteria into sustainable ‘living factories’ capable of transforming plastic waste into valuable industrial chemicals and products.

Preventing Plastic Pollution with Engineering Biology (P3EB) Mission Hub is led by the University of Portsmouth’s Centre for Enzyme Innovation and also involves Bangor University, the University of Cambridge, Imperial College, the University of Manchester and University College London.


We’re excited to get started and to demonstrate the immense possibilities that engineering biology offers through the use of plastic waste a feedstock for this new area of biotechnology. As the industrial potential and environmental benefits of new biotechnological processes continues to grow, could we be wearing, eating, and treating disease using sustainable products derived from plastic waste in the future? We think so!

Professor Stephen Wallace UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Senior Lecturer in Biotechnology

Targeted Treatment

Gene therapies work by replacing a disease-causing gene with a healthy one, inactivating disease-causing genes or introducing new or modified genes to help treat a disease.

For gene therapies to be effective and safe they need to be delivered to the right place in the body, at the right level and for the right length of time. 

The hub will build and test genetic components that allow precise control over a therapeutic gene’s level of activity and duration of action inside human cells.

Edinburgh Genome Foundry will enable this research through its highly automated platform specialising in the assembly of large DNA fragments. It is is one of only a handful of foundries around the world that has the capability to design, build and test DNA in this way.

The hub will also develop and test a range of delivery systems, which involve the use of viruses, stripped of their disease-causing abilities, to insert therapeutic genes into the correct tissue.

Professor Rosser worked with the Strategic Partnerships Team at Edinburgh Innovations, the University’s commercialisation service, to secure the support and engagement from industry necessary for the Hub.

 

Gene therapies have the potential to revolutionise healthcare by treating or even curing disease. But for them to be effective and safe they need to be delivered to the right place in the body, in the right amount, and for the right length of time. This is where engineering biology comes in. By developing a suite of tools and training scientists for academia and industry, we hope to realise the UK’s potential to be a global leader in engineering biology for healthcare and, ultimately, to improve global health.

Professor Susan Rosser Professor of Synthetic Biology, Principal Investigator for the Engineering Biology Mission Hub

Artificial intelligence and digital technologies are creating previously unimaginable opportunities to transform healthcare and how we treat disease. To realise these opportunities, we need to bring together different disciplines with the public, private and third sectors, as well as ensure access to cutting edge facilities such as the Edinburgh Genome Foundry – the world’s largest automated DNA factory. Our Strategic Partnerships Team is focussed on building new collaborations that are ambitious in both scope and scale. We are proud to have harnessed significant industry engagement in this Engineering Biology Mission Hub and we are very excited about what we can now achieve, together, to meet our most pressing global data, climate and health challenges.

Dr Andrea Taylor Director of the Strategic Partnership Team at Edinburgh Innovations

I am delighted that our researchers will play such pivotal roles in driving the next wave of innovation in engineering biology. These exciting technologies could help deliver a wide range of benefits to society, by providing new tools to tackle challenges in areas including health, environment and sustainability. The research carried within these new hubs will contribute directly to the core missions of our recently launched Research and Innovation Strategy 2030, which aims to galvanise activity across the whole University to tackle urgent global challenges.

Professor Sir Peter Mathieson Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh
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