Engineering Biology for Health and Wealth

Using engineering principles we can redesign biology to create transformative and sustainable products for our growing population.

Biotechnology uses living systems (e.g. yeast, plants, bacteria, human stem cells) to develop or make new products; it underpins the so-called bioeconomy and global ambitions for sustainability.

Using engineering principles to redesign biology (so-called synthetic biology), we can achieve transformative improvements across many industries. For example, we can re-programme of stem cells for use as medicines or turn living cells, such as yeast and bacteria, into ‘biofactories’ to produce ‘greener’ chemicals, medicines and biofuels.

 

Examples of research projects in this thematic area:

Dr Baojun Wang has created a mobile phone compatible test for the environmental pollutant arsenic using engineered living cells.

Dr Tilo Kunath has engineered ‘Parkinson’s disease free’ brain cells which could be used to repair the neuronal damage caused by this degenerative disease.

 

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