Industrial Biotechnology

Industrial biotechnology is transforming manufacturing by enabling complex molecules to be produced from low-cost feedstocks.

We work with a range of industries to develop improved medicines, oils and enzymes, and explore ways of maximising resource recovery from organic residues and wastes.

Our researchers manipulate microbial systems, plants and mammalian cell biology using state-of-the-art omics technologies, mathematical modelling and systems biology.

Research highlights

Cracking the chemical processes of catnip

Decoding the opium poppy genome

Energy down the drain

Collaborative UK-India research programmes

People

Name	Expertise
Ian Bancroft	Industrial rapeseed oils Rapeseed co-products Metabolites to impact
Neil Bruce	Enzyme discovery Lignocellulose degradation Bioremediation
Nia Bryant	Secretory pathway manipulations Mechanisms of cell death (and how to avoid them) Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a synthetic biology platform
James Chong	Anaerobic digestion Applied systems biology Methanogenic archaea
Seth J Davis	Plant circadian clocks and mathematics of curves Industrial biotechnology of the red alga Galdieria Complete genome sequencing
Katherine Denby	Generating crops with enhanced disease resistance Development of leafy vegetables with enhanced nutritional content Gene editing
Ian A Graham FRS	Metabolism of alkaloids and terpenoids Medicinal plants Industrial biotechnology of high value chemicals from plants
Andrea Harper	Multi-omic analysis of complex traits Plant health and stress tolerance Crop improvement
Benjamin Lichman	Plant natural product biosynthesis Evolution of plant specialised metabolism Mechanism and applications of enzymes from plant specialised metabolism
Luke Mackinder	Algal engineering Photosynthetic improvements High-throughput and synthetic biology
Simon McQueen-Mason	Biorefining for low carbon fuels chemicals and materials Plant cell walls Lignocellulolytic enzyme discovery
Michael Plevin	Protein engineering Protein characterisation Recombinant protein expression
Kelly Redeker	Assessing function and status through volatile trace gas fluxes Anaerobic digestion Plant-soil-microbial systems
Federico Sabbadin	Enzyme discovery Plant biomass valorisation Keratin valorisation Insect venomics
Gavin Thomas	Chemicals resistance in microbial production chassis Body odour formation in humans Uptake and efflux of small molecules for industrial biotechnology
Thierry Tonon	Algal physiology and metabolism Algal metabolic pathways and enzymes Biotechnological applications of algae and algal genes
Daniel Ungar	Cell biology of Golgi organization Mechanism and modelling of glycan biosynthesis Biologics glycosylation
Robert White	Gene transcription in health & disease Control of tRNA expression Molecular approaches to enhance transgene expression
Jamie Wood	Mathematical and computational methods Systems biology Microbial ecology and metabolism