Featured News Stories
U.S. Department of Energy:
Systems Biology of Bioenergy-Relevant Microbes to Enable Production of Next-Generation Biofuels and Bioproducts
September 2021
Microbial communities are ubiquitous in nature, exhibiting incredibly versatile metabolic capabilities and remarkable robustness. Inspired by these synergistic microbial ecosystems, the rational design of synthetic microbial consortia is emerging as a new paradigm for bioprocessing and offers tremendous potential for solving some of the biggest societal challenges. Read the summary of our project with University of Michigan and Princeton University here.
The Chemical Engineer: From Slime to Sublime
November 2018
FROM the moment we wake up and gaze at our reflection in the mirror, we consume our first precious resource of the day whilst brushing our teeth. Our languid minds might inquire: is it necessary to leave the tap running? Within minutes we go from resource use to waste production; the cereal or milk has run out – where does the empty plastic bag, box and carton go? Hopefully, in the appropriate recycling bins (if you have them). Read more here
Microbial community engineering project featured in recent CBE Research Magazine
January 2018
"When you next throw your rubbish into a bin spare a second imagining its journey to a landfill site, components of it leaching into a pond and subsequently providing food for our algal consortia. This will provide multiple resources for you to meet on a shop’s shelf again!"
Read more here
Fixing broken ecosystems: RENEW research featured in NERC magazine
July 12, 2025
"The world’s growing population is increasing demand for resources like food and clean water – but more people means more waste, and that’s having a direct impact on those resources. But all is not lost: Jags Pandhal and colleagues describe a new technique for cleaning up ecosystems that has knock-on economic benefits too."
Read more at
Refitting the E.coli 'factory'
April 12, 2025
Escherichia coli cells are able to add sugars to proteins using genes from Campylobacter jenuni. Here we learn that an inverse metabolic engineering approach can improve the efficiency of the process and potentially increase the toolbox of this biopharmaceutical workhorse.
Read more at
https://www.labnews.co.uk/features/refitting-the-e-coli-factory-24-09-2013/
