New Centre for Engineering Biology
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Engineering Biology launched in November 2022.
The Centre brings together a community of more than 50 research groups and 200 researchers spanning biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, informatics, medicine and social sciences from the former Centre for Synthetic and Systems Biology (SynthSys), and the UK Centre for Mammalian Synthetic Biology.
Aligned with the UK Government’s National Engineering Biology Programme, the Centre will continue to build on existing expertise and fundamental research, attracting new interdisciplinary collaborations at the interface of biology, driving impact and strengthening the UK’s position as an international leader in this field.
The Centre is underpinned by specialist research facilities including Edinburgh Genome Foundry, the world’s largest automated DNA assembly platform, and EdinOmics, for mass spectrometry, metabolomics and proteomics analysis.
Growth and Opportunities
The Centre’s research addresses diverse scientific questions with wide ranging impacts for society, industry, the economy and our planet. It builds on the University of Edinburgh’s recognised strength in synthetic biology research, and will continue to develop and widen its remit in the future. Examples of recent areas of success are the following -
· Engineering of biology for 'green', or sustainable, chemistry, which leads to more environmentally friendly ways of producing food, fuel, alternative materials and chemicals
· Engineering of mammalian systems for a range of medical technologies, including cell therapies and tissue engineering
Synthetic Biology
Researchers break down the genome into smaller parts to better understand how they contribute to how living systems work; they then either re-use or redesign these genetic parts to build new systems with a variety of novel and useful purposes.
Researchers can, for example, engineer bacteria with the ability to upcycle carbon or metal waste into high value chemicals, or use gene editing tools to generate cells resistant to Lewy bodies and useful in the management of Parkinson’s disease
The University of Edinburgh Centre for Engineering Biology will formally launch at an event on 15 June 2023 for industry partners and other stakeholders.
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