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Research

Biological systems - including the simplest cells - exhibit a broad range of functions to thrive in their environment. Research in the Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology is focused on the possibility of engineering the underlying biochemical processes to solve many of the challenges facing society, from healthcare to sustainable energy. In particular, we model, analyse, design and build biological and biochemical systems in living cells and/or in cell extracts, both exploring and enhancing the engineering potential of biology.

As part of our research we develop novel methods to accelerate the celebrated Design-Build-Test-Learn synthetic biology cycle. As such research in the Centre for Synthetic Biology highly multi- and interdisciplinary covering computational modelling and machine learning approaches; automated platform development and genetic circuit engineering ; multi-cellular and multi-organismal interactions, including gene drive and genome engineering; metabolic engineering; in vitro/cell-free synthetic biology; engineered phages and directed evolution; and biomimetics, biomaterials and biological engineering.

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Kelwick:2020:10.3389/fbioe.2020.00399,
author = {Kelwick, R and Webb, A and Freemont, P},
doi = {10.3389/fbioe.2020.00399},
journal = {Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology},
title = {Biological materials: the next frontier for cell-free synthetic biology},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.00399},
volume = {8},
year = {2020}
}

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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Advancements in cell-free synthetic biology are enabling innovations in sustainable biomanufacturing, that may ultimately shift the global manufacturing paradigm toward localized and ecologically harmonized production processes. Cell-free synthetic biology strategies have been developed for the bioproduction of fine chemicals, biofuels and biological materials. Cell-free workflows typically utilize combinations of purified enzymes, cell extracts for biotransformation or cell-free protein synthesis reactions, to assemble and characterize biosynthetic pathways. Importantly, cell-free reactions can combine the advantages of chemical engineering with metabolic engineering, through the direct addition of co-factors, substrates and chemicals –including those that are cytotoxic. Cell-free synthetic biology is also amenable to automatable design cycles through which an array of biological materials and their underpinning biosynthetic pathways can be tested and optimized in parallel. Whilst challenges still remain, recent convergences between the materials sciences and these advancements in cell-free synthetic biology enable new frontiers for materials research.
AU  - Kelwick,R
AU  - Webb,A
AU  - Freemont,P
DO  - 10.3389/fbioe.2020.00399
PY  - 2020///
SN  - 2296-4185
TI  - Biological materials: the next frontier for cell-free synthetic biology
T2  - Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2020.00399
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/79246
VL  - 8
ER  -

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