BioProNet is delighted to have supported Professor Natalio Krasnogor from the University of Newcastle in his successful grant application entitled ‘Synthetic Portabolomics: Leading the Way at the Crossroads of the Digital and the Bio Economies’. Natalio and his co-investigators were awarded a total of £8.1m of which £5.3M was from EPSRC, £2.5M was from the University of Newcastle and £0.4M was from industry collaborators.

Natalio’s work will be focused on a novel area of synthetic biology, called portabolomics. Currently, novel genetic circuits are designed for a single organism (such as E.coli); the circuit needs to be re-engineered for each new organism that is studied – a process which is time consuming and costly. Natalio and his multidisciplinary team aim to standardise the connection between a given genetic circuit and the chassis organism, by understanding the networks of molecular processes that occur in a cell. They will develop a set of academically and industrially useful organisms where the ‘plug-in’ points for the genetic circuit will be the same for each of the organisms, allowing the genetic circuit to be moved from one organism to another.

Natalio also received support from the Centre for Process Innovation,CERN, Croda, Ingenza, Kajeka, Labgenius, Microsoft, Prozomix, SilicoLife, TerraVerdae Bioworks, The Genome Analysis Centre, University of Edinburgh and University of Liverpool.

More information about the grant
Natalio Krasnogor’s home page

BioProNET recently took part in a science fair at Discovery Park in Kent, which aimed to inspire students to study STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects.

Around 900 school children, aged 11-14 attended the event, and many learned the difficultities in making antibody-based medicines by trying to make replica biologics out of modelling balloons.

The event was covered in a local newspaper and by Kent and Medway STEM, including some pictures of the students’ models. Although the event was called ‘Big Bang’ we’re happy to report that not too many of our balloons burst!

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Our members come from almost all corners of the UK – see the member map below. In addition, we have members in Ireland, China, Kenya, USA, France and Malaysia.