News

The end of 2024 and beginning of 2025 have seen a flurry of reports, surveys, recommendations and articles about the potential of Engineering Biology to impact UK society and economy. So what does it all mean? And what might 2025 have in store for the UK engineering biology community?

Learn about pioneering research at the University of Cambridge, where researchers are applying engineering biology approaches to address the intertwined climate and nature crises. Explore the newly published University of Cambridge Climate Impact Map to find out more about these exciting projects.

The sustainable transformation of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry requires greener manufacturing. The use of enzymes as catalysts offers a promising route to less waste generation and lower energy consumption. However, such biocatalysts often require challenging engineering, where the combination of droplet microfluidics, deep sequencing and AI can make a difference.

Researchers in the Hollfelder group are using novel ultrahigh-throughput screening techniques to discover and improve new biocatalysts for plastic degradation as part of a new UKRI-funded mission hub.

Hear from Climate SynBio Society members Gabrielle Admans and Friederike Nintzel about the Cambridge society dedicated to exploring synthetic biology solutions to climate change.

The Cambridge iGEM team won a Gold Medal and received a nomination for the ‘Best Hardware’ special prize in the Undergrad Category at the 2024 iGEM Grand Jamboree. Their project ‘MaGenTa’ worked on developing tools for magnetogenetics, an approach using magnetic fields to remotely and precisely control gene activation.

Join the Synthetic Biology and Climate Synthetic Biology Societies this term for a range of talks and workshops exploring synthetic and engineering biology.

Cambridge researcher Dr Nicola Patron has been awarded a share of over £2 million to lead the UK’s contribution to a new global centre working to address urgent agricultural problems and explore sustainable solutions for agriculture.

The EngBio IRC are looking for a student or postdoc with an innovative mindset to lead a new project exploring synthetic and engineering biology opportunities within the Cambridge biotechnology cluster.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have investigated the photonic properties of hydrogels embedded with microalgae and the resulting improved efficiency of algal growth within. They hope to scale up algal productivity for commercial applications and novel material synthesis.