Speakers

Bio

Eriko Takano is Professor of Synthetic Biology in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Manchester. She is director for the EPSRC/BBSRC-funded Manchester Synthetic Biology Research Centre, SYNBIOCHEM, and a visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, Japan.

Eriko is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the synthetic biology for antibiotic production and has been working in both industrial and academic research. Eriko’s research interests cover many facets of microbial synthetic biology. She is serving as an expert advisor for national and international bodies, including the OECD, the DSIT Engineering Biology Steering Group, BBSRC Council and various Japanese funding bodies (NEDO, JST, JSPS). She has served as an expert advisor for the European Commission Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks of Synthetic Biology, where she contributed to a series of three official Opinions with major impact on the development of the field.

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MSc in Chemical Engineering, PhD (1989) in Biochemical Engineering and dr.techn. (1995) from the Danish Technical University (DTU). Honorable dr.med. from University of Gothenburg. Fulbright visiting professor at MIT in 1995-1996. Professor at DTU in 1998. In 2008 he was recruited as Professor to Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. In 2015 he was founding Head of the Department of Life Sciences, which now encompass more than 250 people. Jens Nielsen was also a co-founder of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability that now has more than 300 people affiliated, for which he served as CSO 2013-2018. From 2019 CEO of the BioInnovation Institute in Denmark, which is a new institute financed by USD500M that fosters translational research and support new spin-out companies in life sciences. He has trained more than 280 scientists in his research group and published >850 publications that have been cited more than 126,000 times (current H-factor 162). Inventor of >50 patents and founder of six biotech companies. Has received numerous awards, including the ENI Award, the Eric and Sheila Samson Prime Minister Prize for Transportation Fuels, the Novozymes Prize, and the Gold Medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. Member of 13 academies, including NAS, NAE, NAM, Chinese Academy of Engineering, EMBO and Royal Swedish Academy of Science.

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Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro is leading a research group at the interface of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering at Imperial College London. He is interested in using microbial cells to produce sustainable foods, fuels, pharmaceuticals and materials. His research covers the generation of cutting-edge synthetic biology tools such as novel CRISPR tools, the production of compounds of interest such as foods, fuels, chemicals in engineered microorganisms and the exploration of complex microbial communities and their role in improved bioprocesses. Rodrigo is the director of the UKRI Engineering Biology Mission Hub on Microbial Food.

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Susan is Professor of Synthetic Biology and Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) Chair in Emerging Technologies at the University of Edinburgh. She is Director of the UK Centre for Mammalian Synthetic Biology and Co-director of the Edinburgh Genome Foundry for synthetic DNA synthesis and assembly.  She also held a prestigious Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Leadership Fellowship in Synthetic Biology. In 2022, her work was recognised by the national academies of both Scotland and Wales, being elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) and Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. She served as a member of the Scottish Science Advisory Council, Scotland’s highest level science advisory body, providing independent advice and recommendations on science strategy, policy and priorities to the Scottish Government. Her research focuses on using synthetic biology approaches for developing and controlling genetic circuits for applications in cell and gene therapies as well as metabolic engineering. She is co-founder of two early-stage start-ups using a combination of AI and engineering biology for new gene therapies and enzyme replacement therapies for rare diseases.

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Jo has over 30-years’ experience across the biotech and life sciences sectors. Having completed her PhD in Biotechnology at the University of Strathclyde, she held several academic positions which ultimately led to the successful spin-out of XstalBio, an SME focused on providing novel solutions to enable drug and vaccine delivery.
Jo subsequently took on the position of Operations Director at the IBioIC where she led the industry-focused project programme as well as the bioprocess scale-up facilities as part of BioPilotsUK. Here she had the opportunity to indulge her passion for translation of innovation and collaborate with some of the UK’s most talented academics and entrepreneurs. She now works as Operations Director at MiAlgae, a Scottish SME built with circular economy at the core. The company aims to eliminate reliance on wild-caught fish as the primary source of omega-3 by producing a sustainable microalgal alternative from food and drink sector coproducts.

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Dr. Smolke, a pioneer in the fields of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, joined Caltech’s faculty in 2003 as an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and joined Stanford’s faculty in 2009, where she was Professor of Bioengineering. Dr. Smolke’s early work pioneered the design and application of a broad class of RNA molecules, RNA switches, that detect chemical signals and regulate targeted protein activities, providing programmable platforms for building biological sensors and control systems. At Stanford, her team led the breakthrough research to engineer baker’s yeast to produce some of the most complex and valuable plant-based essential medicines known to humankind. At Antheia, her vision and leadership has enabled a synthetic biology platform that dramatically expands the diversity and complexity of molecules that can be reconstructed, enabling new possibilities for drug discovery as well as efficient, sustainable, transparent, on-demand drug manufacturing at scale.

Dr. Smolke’s impact in advancing the frontiers of biotechnology has been recognized with numerous awards, including Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator, Nature’s 10, AIMBE College of Fellows, NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, NSF Career Award, Novozymes Award for Excellence in Biochemical Engineering, WTN Award in Biotechnology, and TR35 Award.

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Hannah is the Director for Technologies and Innovative Regulation in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. She is responsible for Government’s engagement with, and investment in, core emerging technologies including Engineering Biology, Quantum Technologies, Robotics, Cyber Physical Infrastructure and Advanced Materials. Hannah also leads efforts to promote and coordinate more innovative approaches to regulation for emerging and developing technologies. Prior to joining DSIT Hannah was Director for Advanced Manufacturing in BEIS, shepherding the transformation of sectors including Automotive, Aerospace and Marine.

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Cai Linton has an MEng in Molecular Bioengineering from Imperial College London and combines technical knowledge in tissue engineering & data science with management experience. His motivation to create a sustainable future using biotechnology led him to co-found Multus to shorten routes to market and lower entry barriers in the cultivated meat industry. Multus makes it faster and cheaper to get growth media that scales, accelerating the adoption of cellular agriculture. The company’s growth media formulations and ingredients are the building blocks of cellular agriculture and enable the affordable at-scale production of real animal products, including meat, dairy, leather, and more, using cells instead of animals.

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James is the CEO of LabGenius, a next-generation antibody discovery company.

LabGenius has pioneered the development of an ML-driven antibody engineering platform that’s capable of designing, conducting and critically learning from its own experiments. As CEO, James has raised >$70M in financing from top-tier VCs (e.g. M Ventures, Octopus Ventures, Lux Capital, Obvious Ventures, Atomico and Kindred) and struck R&D deals with top pharma companies like Sanofi.

Prior to founding LabGenius, James completed a PhD at Imperial College where he developed novel methods for re-engineering protein nanocages for targeted drug delivery.

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Dr Rosa M. Cuéllar-Franca is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Manchester. Prior to her appointment, she held a postdoctoral research position at the same institution for 2.5 years, working on the programme grant “A coordinated comprehensive approach to carbon capture and utilisation” led by the University of Sheffield and funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. She received her PhD in Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science in 2013 and her MSc in Environmental Technology in 2008 from The University of Manchester, and her Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from the Technological Institute of Tijuana, Mexico in 2007.

Her research focuses on the sustainability assessment of novel technologies for climate change mitigation on a life cycle basis, providing quantitative evidence that enables targeted improvements at various system levels, such as molecular and process design, process operation, and policy making. Her work has centred around developing more environmentally sustainable ionic liquids, catalysts, bio-based chemicals and nanomaterials for cleaner technology development. She is an expert in life cycle assessment (LCA), carbon footprinting, and life cycle costing. She is author of over 30 peer-reviewed papers and her recent article on ionic liquids “A life cycle approach to solvent design: Challenges and opportunities for ionic liquids – application to CO₂ capture”has won the Reaction Chemistry & Engineering 2021 Outstanding Early Career Paper Award in recognition of her potential to influence future directions in the field.

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Ben Reeve is the cofounder and CTO of Modern Synthesis, developing materials from microbes to replace leather and coated textiles in the fashion industry.

He has an MA from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in synthetic biology from the Ellis Lab at Imperial College London. Previously he was a founding team member and CTO of the successful materials spin-out, Puraffinity, where he helped to develop sustainable water treatment materials.

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Orr is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Colorifix. After his early education in Portugal, Orr did his undergraduate, Masters and PhD degrees at Newcastle University, where he studied nanomaterials, biochemistry and synthetic biology. Orr went on to Jim’s Ajioka’s lab at the University of Cambridge to apply these skills to the arsenic biosensor project. From there they spun out a novel and sustainable approach to dyeing textiles using modified organisms to produce, deposit and fix dyes to fabrics.

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Professor Frederic Coulon holds a Chair in Environmental Chemistry and Microbiology at Cranfield University and is internationally renowned for his contributions to pollution control and remediation processes across contaminated land, waste, and wastewater sectors. As the Director of the UKRI Engineering Biology Hub’s Environmental Biotechnology Innovation Centre (EBIC), he leads pioneering research in engineering biological applications and environmental biotechnology to develop innovative environmental solutions. His work addresses global priorities within the Water-Soil-Waste nexus across various sectors and scales. Professor Coulon has significantly influenced policy development and waste disposal strategies by providing risk-based solutions for managing contaminated environments.

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Jen graduated from The University of Sheffield, with a first-class Masters of Biological Sciences in 2004 and a PhD in Biochemistry in 2007. With a 20-plus year progressive career in biotechnology, spanning both higher education and the commercial sector, Jen has held roles in research and development, sales and marketing, business development, and business change and transformation. Jen is currently the COO of the BBIA, and runs her own successful consultancy, FREY, which provides expert advice in business development, fundraising, stakeholder engagement, strategic partnerships, policy development, marketing & communications and project management for the biotech sector.

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Mark is Director of the Biorenewables Development Centre, a process development and scale-up organisation providing expertise to accelerate commercialisation of biobased processes and products. BDC’s capabilities span feedstock identification and preprocessing through to upstream chemical and biological processing, with scale-matched product recovery and purification technologies, typically at 1-100kg scale. Mark has over twenty years’ experience in the life sciences working in, and for, both business and academia, focusing on innovation for biotechnology-enabled industries. He has extensive experience of advising on technological and industrial strategy, sitting on steering groups including the BioYorkshire Steering and Industry Advisory Groups and the Industrial Biotechnology Leadership Forum, and was co-author of the IBLF National Industrial Biotechnology Strategy to 2030. He is a passionate advocate for Engineering Biology as the key driver to develop novel Industrial Biotechnology processes and products at the scale required for the transition to a prosperous and sustainable, defossilised economy.

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Dr. Joe Healey is the CEO and co-founder of NanoSyrinx Ltd, an innovative synthetic biology spin-out from the University of Warwick, engineering novel bacterial “nanosyringes” for targeted delivery of therapeutic proteins. The company is backed by top-tier investors including Octopus Ventures, MVentures, IQ Capital and Jonathan Milner.

Before founding the company Joe completed his PhD in Mathematical Biology & Biophysical Chemistry, at the University of Warwick and founded the company during his studies, submitting a thesis on the nanosyringe technology and its fundamental biology. Prior to this, he completed his Masters degree at Warwick and a Biology honours degree at Aberystwyth University.

In addition to his role as CEO, Joe was also elected to the UK Government’s Engineering Biology Steering Group in 2024.

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Richard with over 19 years’ experience is currently Chief Operating Officer of Holiferm, having grown the company over the last 5 years to drive the creation and successful running of a 1.1KTA Biosurfactant plant together with closing global commercial deals for the products, with plans to scale up capacity of both in the near future. He supports innovation within the industry and sits on several boards, including the BBIA, and attends governmental panels and meetings to ensure messaging on biosurfactants is shared widely. He has grown an impressive chemical portfolio supporting multinational yearly revenue generation of £28.5 million, with proven organic growth, and growing EBITDA from 12% to 16%, between 2018-2019. He also created the commercial business case to build a 36,000 tpa £3.5 million betaine plant and agreed supply contracts for 1000’s of tonnes.

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Giovanni is a Professor of Engineering Biology, an EPSRC fellow, and co-director of the Edinburgh Genome Foundry (EGF) at the University of Edinburgh.

His group is interested in unveiling the genetics and molecular mechanisms leading to diseases to design next-generation therapeutics using two of the most disruptive technologies available: engineering biology and artificial intelligence. His group is currently focused on developing next-generation enzyme replacement therapies for Lysosomal Storage Diseases (LSD), to deliver more potent and economically sustainable treatments to Fabry disease patients.

Giovanni is also the co-founder and CEO of ZYTHERA, an early-stage start-up developing next-generation enzyme replacement therapies using AI, microbial and mammalian expression systems.

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Alex Speakman is the founder of E.V.A Biosystems, a start-up developing synthetic biological additives for integration into plastics used in mass manufacturing with a focus on sustainability, improved efficiency, and compatibility with existing manufacturing methods. A key focus of the company’s work is on producing selectively-degradable plastics, with the primary application being packaging that degrades itself in specific environments, such as seawater or landfill.

He completed his PhD in the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Bioengineering, focusing on DNA nanotechnology and synthetic biology.

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George Freeman was Minister of State in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology between 7 February 2023 and 13 November 2023.

George was previously Minister of State in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 26 October 2022 to 7 February 2023, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 17 September 2021 to 7 July 2022, a Minister of State at the Department for Transport from 26 July 2019 to 13 February 2020, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Life Sciences at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department of Health from July 2014 until July 2016. He also served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State for Climate Change from 2010 to 2011.

He was appointed government adviser on Life Sciences in July 2011, co-ordinating the government’s Life Science and Innovation, Health and Wealth Strategies (2011), and the Agri-Tech Industrial Strategy (2013). He was appointed the Prime Minister’s UK Trade Envoy in 2013.

Before being elected to Parliament, George had a 15 year career across the life sciences sector. In particular, he worked with hospitals, clinical researchers, patient groups, biomedical research companies – to pioneer novel healthcare innovations.

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Paul has been working at the forefront of international synthetic biology developments since 2002 and has played a key role in developing from the outset the UK strategy for synthetic biology research, innovation and training.  

A leading figure in synthetic biology, he has played a key part in the development of synthetic biology in the UK and was a co-author of the British Government’s UK Synthetic Biology Roadmap. Paul has been a passionate advocate for synthetic biology research and translation both in Europe and internationally and has participated as a technical expert in the United Nations Convention for Biological Diversity and Biological Weapons Convention. He is also a working group member of the US NIST synthetic biology standards consortium. 

 Paul’s research interests span from understanding the molecular mechanisms of human diseases and infection to the development of synthetic biology platform technologies and biosensors and he is the author of over 170 peer-reviewed scientific publications. He gives many lectures both at international scientific meetings and also public lecture – the most recent being the Ellison-Cliffe medal lecture at the Royal Society of Medicine. 

 Paul co-founded and co-directs the UK’s first academic research centre for synthetic biology at Imperial College London (CSynBI) and the first R&D centre for synthetic biology SynbiCITE. 

 Paul is also very active in public engagement including numerous public debates – the most recent at the Royal Institution and public displays including at the Science Museum and the first ‘pop-up’ lab at the Victoria and Albert museum. He is also an advocate for training young people and talks regularly at schools and and has successfully co-supervised Imperial undergraduate iGEM teams since 2006. 

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Richard Kitney is Professor of Biomedical Systems Engineering; Chairman of the Institute of Systems and Synthetic Biology; and Co-Director of the EPSRC National Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation. He was Founding Head of the Department of Bioengineering, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering.

He Chaired The Royal Academy of Engineering Inquiry into Synthetic Biology http://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/reports/synthetic-biology-report . Kitney is a member of the Ministerial Leadership Council for Synthetic Biology and was one of the main authors of the UK Roadmap for Synthetic Biology http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/RCUK-prod/assets/documents/publications/SyntheticBiologyRoadmap.pdf.

Richard is recognised as a leading research worker in the field of synthetic biology and, with Professor Paul Freemont, has been responsible for developing the Imperial College Hub for Synthetic Biology  which is now recognised as one of the leading international centres in the field.

In 2013, they were successful in winning the national competition to establish the UK national industrial translation centre for synthetic biology – SynbiCITE.

Richard has published over 300 papers in the fields of synthetic biology, mathematical modelling, biomedical information systems, and medical imaging and has worked extensively in and with industry.

Kitney was made a Fellow of the World Technology Network in 1999 for his innovative work in the fields of health and medicine. He was made an Academician of the International Academy of BioMedical Engineering in September 2003 (this is the highest honour bestowed by the International Federation of BioMedical Engineering Societies). He is also a Fellow of AIMBE, the America Academy of BioMedical Engineering.

In 2006 he was made an Honorary Fellow of both The Royal College of Physicians and The Royal College of Surgeons. In June 2001, Professor Kitney was awarded The Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to Information Technology in Biomedicine.

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Martin Warren is the Interim Director and Chief Scientific Officer at the Quadram Institute Bioscience in Norwich and also holds a position at the University of Kent.

He has developed several strategies in the area of synthetic biology, including the use of “enzyme cocktails” to study complex biochemical pathways in vitro, developing the multi-gene cloning strategy “Link and Lock” for in vivo analysis, and establishing the “enzyme-trap” approach to isolate unstable pathway intermediates. He is a leading authority on the biogenesis of modified tetrapyrroles such as heme and vitamin B12. He has also contributed to the study of bacterial microcompartments (BMCs), prokaryotic organelles that create unique environments for the production of toxic intermediates.

Leveraging these fundamental discoveries, Warren has developed applied technologies in fields such as bioremediation, food, and health sectors. His basic scientific discoveries have been translated into advancements in industrial biotechnology, nutrition, and improved diagnostics.

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John Heap is a research group leader at the University of Nottingham, and leads the Nottingham Engineering Biology Labs research cluster. He and his team develop enabling engineering biology technologies and apply them to design, construct, optimise and exploit engineered microbial strains and biocatalysts for biomanufacturing. He transfers his work widely to academia and industry, including by licencing and commercialising IP. John is inventor of several patent families and co-founder of three startup companies. He is a member of several industrial and academic management, funding, directors and advisory boards and committees. John is the Principal Investigator of the GlycoCell UKRI Engineering Biology Mission Hub, bringing advanced engineering biology technologies together with glycobiology to unlock new effective, sustainable and scalable routes to development and production of vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics and new drug targets.