On Monday 7 July 2025 we held our first annual symposium. The session started with inspiring talks from Cambridge's EngBio Mission award winners. Then we heard about an exciting innovation opportunity from the new EngBio3 accelerator. The morning rounded up with a poster session and lunch - and some fantastic discussions!
The Future of EngBio in Cambridge
First we heard from Prof Laura Itzhaki about the Cambridge Protein Screening Facility. This exciting new initiative aims to identify new protein binders. These have a wide range of applications in therapeutics and bioscience research. The facility aims to make binder identification easier and more accurate. It will also promote open licensing and use, essential for driving innovation.
Then we heard from Prof Paul Miller who, along with Prof Itzhaki, is leading one of four Cambridge EngBio mission award projects. The project will build on work from the Protein Screening Facility to create a pipeline for screening new therapeutics.
Next up Dr Jenny Molloy and Prof Jim Haseloff discussed their mission award. The project aims to make open tools for engineering bacteria, yeast and plant systems. They hope to provide 1) IP-free model organisms for synthetic biology and 2) tools and pipelines for low-cost bioproduction.
In the final talk of the morning, Prof Florian Hollfelder shared his work on plastic-degrading enzymes. This work is part of the Preventing Plastic Pollution with Engineering Biology (P3EB) Mission Hub, led by the University of Portsmouth. The project is developing better methods for directed evolution of plastic-degrading enzymes. They hope that this will lead to 'greener' methods of plastic recycling at an industrial scale.
Innovation in EngBio
Before lunch we were joined online by Dr Lucy McGowan, from Science Creates. She shared an exciting new opportunity to apply for the UK's only dedicated Engineering Biology accelerator. Funded by UKRI's and run by Science Creates, the programme is open to applicants from across the UK. It is also equity-free and fully funded. This includes travel costs and a stipend for participants.
Read about the EngBio3 accelerator programme
Learn more and apply to EngBio3 (EOI deadline: 7 July 2025)
Celebrating Our Community
To top off the morning's exciting talks, we headed for lunch, posters and discussion in the beautiful Great Hall. Early career researchers from across the university presented posters, and shared their research. It was great to see enthusiastic and engaged discussions across the room. A massive thank you to all who attended, and we hope you join us again next year!
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