OpenPlant

Lead Research Organisation: University of Cambridge
Department Name: Plant Sciences

Abstract

An essential concept in Synthetic Biology is that genetic systems can be constructed using standardised, interchangeable parts. For example, functional DNA sequences such as promoters, ribosome binding sites and coding sequences can be used to develop synthetic gene systems that can be used to reprogram living systems in a systematic way. The prospect of large-scale reprogramming of living systems, will require access to relatively large numbers of components. This is in contrast to existing GM products that contain one or a few components. There is growing requirement for libraries of well characterized routine components that can be shared for the construction of a variety of systems, where small companies would be ensured freedom to operate. This is essential to foster the kind of innovation seen at the emergence of other new technologies such as microelectronics and software development.

Accordingly, a substantial part of the Synthetic Biology field has promoted open standards and sharing of data and resources, inspired by the open source software movement. The educational community has embraced the open source principle, and DNA parts are widely and freely distributed internationally as part of educational efforts like the iGEM community, and grows year-on-year. The BioBricks Foundation is a non-profit organisation which has roots in the academic community, and which has promoted a legal framework which would allow protection of Synthetic Biology applications and key activities, but which would facilitate sharing of parts.

Plant biotechnology is a good example of a field where current IP practices have led to a restriction of exchange and innovation, and this model is threatening to predominate in plant synthetic biology. For examples, one just has to look at restrictive licensing of basic technologies like transformation, selection markers and useful genes. We believe that the field needs to explore new "two-tier" intellectual property models that will protect investment in applications, while promote sharing of DNA components and freedom-to-operate for small companies in commercial applications of Synthetic Biology. As the speed and scale of biological assembly increases, this becomes more pressing.

As part of the OpenPlant initiative, we will establish open-source DNA registries across the UK for sharing information, and to join an international web of registries with plant specific parts. The technology is inherently low cost, renewable and has obvious applications for new sustainable technologies.

Technical Summary

Foundational technologies: As part of the OpenPlant initiative, we will (i) establish open-source DNA registries for sharing information, and join an international web of registries with the first plant specific parts. (ii) We will develop a major new plant chassis for Synthetic Biology, (iii) develop new DNA parts for the control and quantitative imaging of genetic circuits in plants, and (iv) genome-scale engineering in plants. (v) Software tools will be further improved for automated DNA assembly, modeling of synthetic gene circuits and cellular morphogenesis

Trait Engineering: The development of new foundational tools and parts will directly contribute to the engineering of new traits in plants, such as (i) altered photosynthesis and leaf structure, (ii) carbohydrate content, (iii) metabolic pathways, (iv) new forms of symbiosis and nitrogen fixation and (v) high level production of biomolecules by virus engines.

Open technologies for innovation: Current IP practices and restrictive licensing threaten to restrict innovation as the scale of DNA systems increases. We believe that the field needs to explore new "two-tier" intellectual property models that will protect investment in applications, while promote sharing of DNA components and freedom-to-operate for small companies in commercial applications of Synthetic Biology. We will create new forums and opportunities for open innovation in plant synthetic biology.

We will sponsor discussions in Cambridge on the potential impact of Synthetic Biology on sustainable practices in agriculture, bioproduction, land use and environmental conservation. This will bring together a wide range of engineers, scientists and policy developers to explore new technologies and possible models for sustainable agriculture, bioproduction and land use.

Planned Impact

A significant barrier to the ability of Synthetic Biology to have commercial impact in the UK is social acceptance of genetic modification. OpenPlant will engage with this issue scientifically by the development of precision gene technologies that can introduce desirable traits without the introduction of transgenes and by supporting research on traits such as nitrogen use that can significantly impact bioproduction. It will also engage through discourse on sustainable agriculture and land use and engagement with a variety of groups including conservationists, social scientists and policy developers.

The restrictive licensing of powerful technologies as well as the prohibitive cost of protecting IP for smaller enterprises threatens to impede the pace of research in plant synthetic biology. The OpenPlant centre aims to promote entrepreneurial activities though a framework that allows the exploration of open technologies and fixed-cost, non-exclusive licenses that can ensure that parts, techniques, libraries and materials have are available to facilitate both scientific exchange and commercial innovation.

Publications

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Aguilar-Cruz A (2019) DNA methylation in Marchantia polymorpha in New Phytologist

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Alagna F (2016) Identification and Characterization of the Iridoid Synthase Involved in Oleuropein Biosynthesis in Olive (Olea europaea) Fruits. in The Journal of biological chemistry

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Anders N (2022) ß-1,4-Xylan backbone synthesis in higher plants: How complex can it be? in Frontiers in plant science

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Anders N (2022) ß-1,4-Xylan backbone synthesis in higher plants: How complex can it be?

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Andriotis VME (2019) The plastidial pentose phosphate pathway is essential for postglobular embryo development in Arabidopsis. in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

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Appelhagen I (2018) Colour bio-factories: Towards scale-up production of anthocyanins in plant cell cultures. in Metabolic engineering

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Arce A (2021) Decentralizing Cell-Free RNA Sensing With the Use of Low-Cost Cell Extracts. in Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology

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Arce A (2021) Decentralizing Cell-Free RNA Sensing With the Use of Low-Cost Cell Extracts.

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Aubry S (2016) A Specific Transcriptome Signature for Guard Cells from the C4 Plant Gynandropsis gynandra. in Plant physiology

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Bateson P (2018) Electrochemical Characterisation of Bio-Bottle-Voltaic (BBV) Systems Operated with Algae and Built with Recycled Materials. in Biology

 
Title Additional file 1: of Induction of targeted, heritable mutations in barley and Brassica oleracea using RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease 
Description Chromatogram traces of T 0 -181 and T 0 -191 plants. (JPG 439 kb) 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2015 
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/figure/Additional_file_1_of_Induction_of_targeted_herit...
 
Title Additional file 1: of Induction of targeted, heritable mutations in barley and Brassica oleracea using RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease 
Description Chromatogram traces of T 0 -181 and T 0 -191 plants. (JPG 439 kb) 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2015 
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/figure/Additional_file_1_of_Induction_of_targeted_herit...
 
Title Anne Osbourn Ordering her life and origins as a scientist through poetry/Branco Weiss Fellowship 
Description 2020 Publication of Poetry Collection - "Mock Orange" - 3rd Prize winner of the Sentinel poetry competition 2018 https://spmpublications.com/shop/mock-orange-anne-osbourn.html 
Type Of Art Creative Writing 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact Mock Orange is a collection of poems in which Anne Osbourn attempts to order her life and her origins and to try to understand how and why she became a scientist, specifically a plant biologist. From early childhood she has tried to make sense of the world through plants. In mid-eighteenth century Sweden Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, spent his life trying to understand his Maker through the classification of plants. Osbourn's poetry encompasses Linnaeus's adventures and experiences and his fascination with living things. Mock Orange is therefore about journeys from origins, both personal and global, in which negotiations between scientific and non-scientific languages and points of view form a central theme. 
URL https://brancoweissfellowship.org/news-2021/anne-osbourn-ordering-her-life-and-origins-as-a-scientis...
 
Title Antibiotics Posters 
Description We took elements from the SAW antibiotics book and had them designed as 5 public information posters suitable for schools, surgeries and other public spaces to improve understanding of what antimicrobial resistance means and how people can help. 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2019 
Impact We are currently in discussions with a local NHS GP surgery and the regional CCG about distribution of a SAW antibiotics book along with these 5 supplementary posters to all GP surgeries in the county in the first instance. 
 
Title Anxiety and Awe, a collection of poems by Norwich Scientists and Writers 
Description The 2015 NRP-UEA iGEM team worked with the Science and Writing Trust (SAW), to hold a workshop for established poets at the amazing Dragon Hall, a beautiful medieval building and home to the Norwich Writers Centre. At the workshop, we talked about our project, iGEM and bioengineering with established and published poets. We conducted writing exercises guided by the published poet, Esther Morgan in which we expressed our emotions, concerns and awe of science. This workshop resulted in a collaborative collection of poems by writers and scientists. The collection is published on our website (http://2015.igem.org/Team:NRP-UEA-Norwich/WritersWorkshop) and was presented at the iGEM Giant Jamboree, where it gained us a nomination for best communication. 
Type Of Art Creative Writing 
Year Produced 2015 
Impact The collection is published on our website (http://2015.igem.org/Team:NRP-UEA-Norwich/WritersWorkshop) and was presented at the iGEM Giant Jamboree, where it gained us a nomination for best communication. 
URL http://2015.igem.org/Team:NRP-UEA-Norwich/WritersWorkshop
 
Title Glowing oat seedlings 
Description Young oat seedling roots glow under UV due to the accumulation of the antimicrobial triterpene avenacins. Oats naturally produce avenacins exclusively within the root tip epidermal cells, which protects them from soil pathogens. Image supplied by researchers in the Osbourn laboratory at the John Innes Centre on the Norwich Research Park. 
Type Of Art Image 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact Image placed on the Norwich Research Park image library, for free sharing and dissemination. 
URL http://images.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/imagedetails.aspx?imgid=229
 
Title Image of Nicotiana benthamiana 
Description Nicotiana benthamiana, a relative of the tobacco plant, is commonly used in plant research. Here, the leaf is used as a host organism to produce components of avenacin, a fluorescent antimicrobial produced by oat roots, which protects the roots from soil pathogens. A cluster of genes - the Sad genes - have been identified in oat as the instructions used to produce avenacin. The blue spots indicate the presence of parts of the avenacin compound introduced by inserting some of the Sad genes into the host plant. The other spots are controls to test the expression system. Image supplied by Aymeric Leveau, Osbourn laboratory. 
Type Of Art Image 
Year Produced 2015 
Impact Image placed on the Norwich Research Park Image Library, for free sharing and dissemination. 
URL http://images.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/imagedetails.aspx?imgid=103
 
Title Nicotiana, biofoundry. 
Description An artistic interpretation inspired by plant systems for bioproduction of natural products developed with artist and designer, Karen Ingram. 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2018 
Impact Published as part of 'Convergent Visions' Faesthetic #15 produced in partnership with SXSW for the SXSW Art Program 2018. Presented at SXSW Interactive 2018. 
URL http://think.faesthetic.com/archives/9687
 
Title OpenMTA Video 
Description A video describing the open material transfer agreement produced by the Biobricks Foundation in collaboration and featuring interviews with OpenPlant group leaders and others. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact The OpenMTA has not yet been officially launched so there are so far only 71 views on youtube. 
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt6b8_mY-i4
 
Title SAW Antibiotics - Science from the Norwich Research Park - Book published by the SAW Press (2017) - ISBN 978-0-9550180-3-9 
Description A book illustrating research on the Norwich Research Park on antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance, assembled following Science, Art and Writing (SAW) projects led by NRP scientists in local schools 
Type Of Art Artefact (including digital) 
Year Produced 2017 
Impact The book was appreciated by the government chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies, whose comments are on the front - 'I thoroughly enjoyed this stunning book. Educating children in such an interactive way is so important. I am passionate about addressing AMR, as are the researchers, and I hope this can help inspire future generations to engage in the efforts to save modern medicine.' This project is being captured by the University of East Anglia as an example of effective impact for the next REF. 
 
Title Winner of Norwich Research Park Image Library Competition: Dr Thomas Louveau 
Description More than 150 images of work were submitted by researchers, clinicians and scientists who work at the site, for the NRP image library competition. These were narrowed down to 12 finalists - which will form part of a calendar - from which an overall winner was selected. The winning image, entitled A New Planet, was taken by Thomas Louveau, a post-doctoral scientist in the Department of Metabolic Biology at the John Innes Centre. The image show a dried plant extract in a round flask taken from behind on a dark background. The extraction is part of the purification process of new-to-nature metabolites produced by synthetic biology approaches. The new metabolic pathway has been engineered in Nicotiana benthamiana, a relative of tobacco by scientists at the John Innes Centre on the Norwich Research Park who are studying natural products.. 
Type Of Art Image 
Year Produced 2015 
Impact A calendar was produced from the 12 final images, with "A New Planet" on the cover. The images are also displayed in the Centrum building on the Norwich Research Park. 
URL http://edp24.co.uk/news/tech/sheer_beauty_of_science_showcased_in_competition_at_norwich_research_pa...
 
Description Key Findings


2014-2015

Refurbishment and equipping of new OpenPlant laboratories
in Cambridge and Norwich.

Establishment of a common genetic syntax for exchange
of DNA parts for plants, extensible to all eukaryotes (Patron et al., 2015; RFC106).

Drafting of an Open Materials Transfer Agreement, a
simple, standardized legal tool to enable sharing of materials and associated data on a more open basis.

Implementation of a "single-click" OSX-installable version
of the JBEIR-ICE open source DNA registry and DNA manipulation software.

Development of routine methods for transformation and
gene editing in Marchantia polymorpha.

Development of Marchantia paleacea as a new system for
engineering actinomycorrhizal associations.

Generation of draft genome and transcriptome maps for
M. polymorpha and M. paleacea.

Characterisation of miR1157 and miR1162 precursors for
use as synthetic gene regulators in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

Refactoring and use of the HyperTrans system for rapid
testing of DNA circuits for terpene synthesis in Nicotiana benthamiana.


2015-2016

Commissioned advanced imaging/robotics equipment at
the Cambridge OpenPlant lab.

Completion of genome sequence and transcript map of
the Cam-1 (male) and Cam-2 (female) isolates of Marchantia polymorpha. Data will be included in forthcoming publication of genome.

High resolution map of the time course of gene expression
during sporeling germination and chloroplast differentiation.

Construction of MarpoDB, a genecentric database for
mining and describing DNA parts from Marchantia (http://marpodb.io)

Official acceptance of the common syntax for plant DNA
parts as a new standard (Phytobricks) in the iGEM 2016 competition, and introduction of an award for plant work.

Development of Phytobrick and UNS standards for efficient
hierarchical assembly of DNA circuits.

Expansion of a Chlamydomonas DNA toolkit for target
gene expression and assay of miRNA-dependent gene silencing.

Development of a suite of Cas9 variants and toolkit
for targeted mutagenesis and gene deletion in multiple plant species.

Construction of series of vectors for fine tuning of
protein expression using HyperTrans system

Methods for mining plant genomes for biosynthetic gene
clusters

Design and synthesis of an artificial protein scaffold
library, built to the Phytobrick standard and verified by BiFC.

Production of cell-specific epitope tags for identifying
DNA motifs that drive gene expression in photosynthetic tissues in Arabidopsis.

Publication of a novel reporter for chloroplast transformation,
and identification of transit peptides for chloroplast localisation of nuclear encoded products in Marchantia.

Identification of a large repertoire of carbohydrate
active enzymes in Euglena gracilis.

Transformation of gene editing constructs into potato,
to create digestion-resistant starches, and preliminary screening of transformed plantlets.

Gram-scale production of triterpenes for analysis and
assay, using the HyperTrans system.

Production of the plant-derived iridoid alkaloid strictosidine
in yeast.

Generation of a trichome-specific protein database for
enzyme discovery.

Asteraceae P450 proteins as a toolkit for targeted modification
of sesquiterpenes.

Development of the HyperTrans system for use in tomato.

Screening tomato introgression lines for regulators
of monoterpene biosynthesis.

Yeast one-hybrid analysis for the identification of
transcription factors that regulate triterpene metabolic gene clusters.

Characterisation of gene targets for AtMYB12 and SIMYB12
in tomato, for enhancing phenylpropanoid metabolism and high levels of resveratrol and genistin production.

Construction of a synthetic gene cluster for dhurrin
biosynthesis in Arabidopsis roots.

Construction and distribution of HyperTrans DNA vectors
that are compatible with the Phytobrick standard.

Testing of the HyperTrans system in Marchantia and BY2
cells.

Consultation on the design of the Norwich Research Park
LeafSystems high throughput production facility, due for completion in Q2 2017.


2016-2017

Consolidation of the Phytobrick standard for Type IIS
based DNA parts for plants, including acceptance as first standard for eukaryotic DNA parts, and introduction of the Plant Prize in iGEM 2016.

Design, domestication and synthesis of the first 500
DNA parts for Marchantia (Susana Sauret-Gueto, Haseloff lab).

Establishment of the Loop assembly technique first presented
at the iGEM2016 Jamboree (Bernardo Pollak & Fernan Federici, Haseloff lab).

Automation of Loop assembly at 500nL scale using Labcyte
acoustic focusing and Hamilton robots at Earlham Institute (Patron lab, A. Hall lab & Haseloff lab).

Established an automated assembly and transient expression
workflow for assessing Cas9-mediated targeted mutagenesis using plant protoplasts and Illumina MiSeq sequencing (Oleg Raitskin, Patron Lab).

Validated an expanded molecular toolkit in the plant
common syntax of Cpf1- and Cas9- variants showing improved specificity in plant protoplasts (Raitskin, Patron Lab).

Established methods for direct delivery of a ribonuclease
complex (Cas9:YFP recombinant protein & guide RNA) for induction of targeted mutagenesis in protoplasts of N. tabacum, N. benthamiana & S. tuberosum (Raitskin, Patron Lab).

Developed S. elongatus constructs for examining the
circadian clock and its outputs at the single cell level, and published frequency doubling model of the clock in Molecular Systems Biology (Bruno Martins, Locke lab).

Circadian clock model made available in SBML format
(Martins, Locke lab).

Validated the use of fluorescent protein based reporter
for evaluating miRNA mediated gene silencing in Chlamydomonas (Francisco Navarro, Baulcombe lab).

Optimised miRNA abundance, extent of sequence complementarity
and target sites for gene silencing in Chlamydomonas (Navarro, Baulcombe lab).

Constructing synthetic genetic circuits with miRNA mediated
incoherent feed-forward loop to confer robust levels of gene expression (Navarro, Baulcombe lab).

Constructing DNA parts, in accordance with the common
syntax, to contribute to a Chlamydomonas MoClo toolkit (Baulcombe and Smith labs).

Synthesis of a panel of codon optimised fluorescent
reporters spanning the visual spectrum, including five variants of the fluorescent reporters: iRFP670, mCardinal, mPlum, mCerulean, mNeptune, mRaspberry, mTurquoise, mWasabi, eBFP, Sirius and TagCFP, all modified for chloroplast expression (Ajioka lab).

The Marchantia chloroplast genome has been re-annotated.
Missing ORFs have been identified, partial annotations have been completed and likely promoter sites identified throughout the chloroplast genome using BPROM (Ajioka lab).

CRISPR-Cas9 mediated gene KO to produce "giant chloroplast"
phenotypes in Marchantia, (Male, Pollak, Sauret-Gueto, Silvestri in Haseloff lab).

Established reproducible colonisation of several liverwort
species (Marchantia spp., Lunularia cruciata) with Glomeromycota fungi (Funnelliformis mossae, Rhizophagus irregularis) in custom vermiculite system and detection using staining and high resolution confocal fluorescence microscopy (Philip Carella, Schornack
lab).

Established constructs for secretion system pathway
and tonoplast labelling and have confirmed functionality in M. polymorpha (Carella, Schornack lab).

Enhancer trap screen underway in Haseloff lab (Tomaselli,
Sauret-Gueto & Silvestri.

In planta cytometry techniques developed in Marchantia
gemma (Pollak & Delmans, Haseloff lab).

Developed clearing techniques for image reconstruction
of Marchantia air chambers (Marta Tomaselli, Haseloff lab) .

Built ubiquitin-tagged rapid-turnover fluorescent markers
for imaging dynamic genetic responses (Lukas Mueller, Webb-Haseloff labs).

New synthetic version of the 5' UTR used in HyperTrans
system has been shown to be twice as effective as the original HT sequence (Hadrian Peyret, Lomonossoff lab).

Developed a new vector system (pEFF) which combines
the high translational benefits of the CPMV-HT system with the replication ability of potato virus X, in collaboration with the Centre for Bioengineering at the Russian Academy of Sciences (Lomonossoff lab).

Characterised promoter elements that drive specific
expression in leaves, and a negative regulator that represses expression in mesophyll and veinal cells (Hibberd lab).

Compiled a list of transcription factors preferentially
expressed in bundle sheath cells of Arabidopsis, including cognate TF for above-mentioned promoter element (Hibberd lab).

Heterologous xylan arabinosyltransferases have been
cloned in Arabidopsis lines using common syntax rules (Henry Temple & Louis Wilson, Dupree lab).

Testing the enzymatic activities of arabinosyltransferases
using N. benthamiana transient expression with the HyperTrans vector system (Temple & Wilson, Dupree lab).

Exploring artificial in vitro metabolic cycles driving
production of glucose-based oligosaccharides from cheap and readily available sucrose by using sucrose phosphorylase and glucan phosphorylases (Field lab).

Applying and testing the genome editing tools and technologies
developed in the Patron lab to generate potatoes that contain digestion-resistant starches with potential nutritional benefits (Aytug Tuncel, Smith lab, JIC).

Developed methods to transform and engineer protoplasts
directly isolated from potato leaves (Tuncel & Raitskin, Smith and Patron labs).

Mined transcriptome of Euglena gracilis for metabolic
carbohydrate metabolism and natural product biochemistry and released in the CAZy database (Field lab).

Collaborated with Medema lab (Wageningen) to release
plantiSMASH, a customised algorithm for mining plant genomes for biosynthetic gene clusters (Kautsar et al. 2017; Osbourn lab).

Improved agro-infiltration methodology for production
of triterpenes using the HyperTrans transient plant expression system, leading to gram-scale production of the triterpene scaffold, ß-amyrin (Reed et al., 2017; Osbourn lab).

Identified genes that modulate stereochemistry of the
iridoid ring system, with potential for compounds with important agrichemical activity (Benjamin Lichman, O'Connor lab.

Blocking turnover of L-DOPA production in beetroot to
enable low-tech plant sourced bioproduction for Parkinson's treatment (Noam Chayut, Martin lab)

Engineered enzymes from the Asteraceae family into yeast
to generate oxygenated sesquiterpenes (Nguyen et al., 2016; Don Nguyen, ex O'Maille lab).

Investigating three-dimensional positioning of biosynthetic
gene clusters in the A. thaliana genome using Hi-C mapping and FISH analysis (Hans Nützmann, Osbourn lab)

Yeast-one-hybrid assays have been used to identify a
candidate transcription factor for a biosynthetic gene cluster from oat (the avenacin cluster; Osbourn lab).

Nine promoters have been isolated from the oat avenacin
cluster that retain root-specific expression patterns in a wide range of plants (Aymeric Leveau, Osbourn lab).

Three of these oat promoters have been used to drive
the expression of a 3 gene pathway for a plant defence compound (dhurrin) from sorghum in Arabidopsis roots (Osbourn lab).

Produced synthetic virus-like particles (VLPs) to enable
the structure of particles of potato leafroll virus to be solved to near atomic resolution (Lomonossoff lab).


2017-2018

Publication of quantitative microscale work showing
intercellular adhesion promotes clonal mixing in growing bacterial populations.

Development of microfluidic vessels for quantitative
observation of cyanobacteria.

Droplet-based microfluidic analysis and screening of
single plant cells.

Construction of an improved generation of Loop Assembly-compatible
transformation vectors for plants.

Establishment of efficient chloroplast transformation
techniques in Marchantia.

Use of multispectral markers with in planta cytometry,
to allow segmentation of cell geometries and quantitative assignment of biological parameters on a cell-by-cell basis.

Publication of the genome sequence and transcriptome
datasets for Marchantia.

Publication of revision 4.0 of MarpoDB

Synthesis of an almost complete collection (350/398)
of proximal promoters for transcription factors in Marchantia.

Collection of single-cell transcriptomic data from germinating
gemma.

Launch of the OpenMTA license with a published commentary
in Nature Biotechnology 36:923-927, 2018.

Screening of cell and tissue type specific expression
lines from enhancer trap transformants.

Development of a novel system for "resetting" Marchantia
development by surgically dissecting gemma.

Miniaturisation and automation of efficient DNA Loop
Assembly reactions using nanolitre scale handling.

Integration of Benchling as a free web-based solution
for online lab notebooks, sequence editor and inventory handler.

Use of Benchling as a DNA registry and for protocol
sharing across OpenPlant.

Construction of optimised genetic circuits as reporters
for circadian clock output.

Identification of a number of putative electrically
regulated promoters in cyanobacteria.

Characterisation of improved biophotovoltaic vessels
and chassis strains.

Construction and publication of a MoClo kit, consisting
in a set of Golden Gate-domesticated DNA parts, for the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

High-throughput workflow to analyse conditional behavior
of riboswitches in vivo.

MoClo parts for transformation of the chloroplast genome
of C. reinhardtii.

Establishment of protocols to allow chloroplast transformation
by electroporation in Chlamydomonas.

Regulation of chloroplast gene expression via TPR/PPR
proteins encoded by the nucleus in Chlamydomonas.

Sequencing and reannotation of the chloroplast genome
from the Cambridge isolates of M. polymorpha.

Construction of a new generation of Loop Assembly vectors
for plastid transformation in Marchantia.

Optimisation of biolistic delivery protocols for high
efficiency plastid transformation in Marchantia.

Generation of ftsz1 and ftsz2 mutant plant lines that
produce fewer and larger plastids per cell.

Development of techniques and novel vector systems for
RNA-guided Cas9-mediated targeted mutagenesis and gene deletion in plant species (Nicotiana, Arabidopsis, Marchantia).

Automated construct assembly and delivery to plant protoplasts
to enable rapid quantitative assessments of the efficiency and specificity of gene editing.

Development of software-based 3-parameter measurement
techniques for quantifying gene expression in cell suspensions to minimise extrinsic noise

Publication of a computational framework for automated
analysis of microplate reader data.

Construction of models for the coupling of the cyanobacterial
clock and control of period and cell growth.

Development of software-based classification schemes
for description of gene expression at the cellular scale in Marchantia gemmae.

Maintenance and upgrades for the CellModeller software
package, to include cell-cell adhesion and cell shape.

Publication of algorithms for whole colony-scale segmentation
from confocal microscopy datasets of growing microbes.

Identification and functional characterisation of DNA
parts for natural product synthesis.

Employment of genomic neighbourhood associations to
identify triterpene-scaffolding genes with tailoring cytochrome P450s and acyltransferases.

Improvement of agro-infiltration methodology for gram-scale
production of triterpenes using the HyperTrans transient plant expression system.

Publication of the improved infiltration protocol in
text and video format.

In silico identification of new CYP450s with different
oxidizing specificities.

Identification of new building blocks for biosynthesis
of iridoids.

Discovery of neofunctionalisation of a short chain alcohol
dehydrogenase (SDR) with a non-redox role in controlling the stereochemical course of ring cyclization during iridoid synthesis.

Blocked the turnover of L-DOPA in beetroot, using CRISPR/Cas9-mediated
genome editing, to enable low-tech accessible production in a plant system.

Development of a novel suspension culture production
system that produces exceptionally high levels of anthocyanins.

Over-expression of the Rosea1 and Delila transcription
factors to produce multiply-acylated blue anthocyanins.

Activation of the anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway in
cultures of Arabidopsis thaliana to produce diacylated cyanidin with a blue colour at neutral pH.

Identification and characterisation of transcription
factors for control of natural product production.

Use of protocols for chromosome conformation capture
and FISH analysis to investigate the three-dimensional positioning of biosynthetic gene clusters in the nucleus of Arabidopsis thaliana.

Identification of candidate transcription factors that
regulate promoters of metabolic gene clusters including central pathway clusters and the avenacin pathway .

Use of a truncated version of the bHLH transcription
factor Delila along with Rosea1 to fine-tune anthocyanin production for increased yield.

Testing of nine promoters from the oat avenacin cluster
to demonstrate retention of characteristic expression patterns when introduced into diverse plant species as promoter-reporter constructs.

Three promoters from the oat avenacin cluster were used
to successfully drive the expression of a three-gene pathway for a plant defence compound (dhurrin) from sorghum in Arabidopsis thaliana roots.

Development of robust methods for co-cultivation of
Marchantia spp. with Glomeromycota fungi and visualisation of colonization.

Development of a high-throughput transformation system
for Marchantia paleacea, with marker systems for labelling the secretory system and tonoplast.

Establishment of reproducible colonisation of several
liverwort species (Marchantia spp., Lunularia cruciata) with Glomeromycota fungi (Funnelliformis mossae, Rhizophagus irregularis).

Measurement of the Marchantia transcriptome in response
to filamentous pathogen colonisation to identify a set of genes strongly upregulated during defense.

Identification of the MYB14 transcription factor that
produces a red pigment in cells, useful for sector analysis.

Production of a draft genome sequence for M. paleacea
using paired end libraries and illumina sequencing.

The three main symbiosis TFs in (IPD3, NSP1 and NSP2)
in M. paleacea were tested in complementation assays in Medicago mutants.

Integration of Marchantia as a model system in the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation Engineering Nitrogen Symbiosis for Africa project, which was recently awarded Phase 2 funding.

Analysis of transcriptome data to indicate that a Marchantia
syntaxin (SYP13B) whose legume ortholog is implicated in nitrogen fixing symbiosis may also play a role in intracellular colonisation by an oomycete pathogen.

Development of new Hyper-Trans vectors to enable fine-tuning
of protein expression levels by making changes in the 5'- and 3'-UTRs of the CPMV-HT system

Construction of modified components of the CPMV-HT system
that are compatible with the OpenPlant plant common syntax.

Development of a new synthetic version of the 5' UTR
used in the HT system, which is twice as effective as the original.

Two new vectors (pHRE and pHREAC) have been finalised
and are ready for distribution.

In collaboration with the Centre for Bioengineering
at the Russian Academy of Sciences (CB-RAS), a new vector system (pEFF) has been developed a new which combines the high translational benefits of the CPMV-HT system with the replication ability of potato virus X (PVX).

The CPMV-HT system has been translated to the BY2 cell
pack system, and is also being used in tomatoes and tested in Marchantia.

Successful expression of a protein from Theileria parva
(causal agent of East Coast Fever, a veterinary disease in Sub-Saharan Africa) which has been difficult to express in other systems.


2018-2019

DNAs will be distributed through Addgene, and we await implementation of the OpenMTA in their distribution systems. In the meantime, we have distributed material directly, using the implementation of the OpenMTA at the University of Cambridge.

We have recently published our work on DNA methylation in Marchantia (Aguillar-Cruz et al., 2019), and the Loop Assembly method (Pollak et al., 2019).

A previously identified electrically regulated promoter element from cyanobacteria was also found to be functional in E. coli as a repressor.

We have published our work on the development of biophotovoltaic systems (Rowden et al., 2018; Wey et al., 2019), and the genomic and transcriptomic analysis of the peridinin dinoflagellate Amphidinium carterae plastid (Dorell et al., 2019).

To be able to build and analyse novel riboswitches in Chlamydomonas in a high-throughput manner, we used the Chlamydomonas Golden-Gate MoClo kit to construct a series of riboswitch-regulated fluorescent reporter genes. Use of fluorescent proteins, as C-terminal tags of transgenes or as reporters of promoter activity, was only possible until recently and is now a widely used strategy in our lab for both Chlamydomonas and Pheaodactylum alga models.

We have demonstrated the utility of the thiamine riboswitch in Chlamydomonas for metabolic engineering, by placing the casbene synthase enzyme under regulatory control of the riboswitch, which allowed tuneable production of casbene diterpenoid dependent on exogenous thiamine concentrations.

We have published our work on miRNA-mediated regulation of gene expression in Chlamydomonas (Chung et al., 2019; Navarro et al., 2019).

A suite of variants of Cas proteins from different bacterial species was systematically compared resulting in an expanded standardized toolkit for genome engineering in plants (Raitskin et al, 2019, PloSOne). Methods for protoplast delivery developed in this study were also applied to potato (Workpackage G) which resulted in publication (Tuncel et al., 2019, Plant Biotechnology Journal).

We have developed imaging and image-processing methods, which allow simultaneous tracking of tissue kinetics and dynamics of gene expression.

We have, in a collaborative effort with Monica Dayao, employed deep learning methods to create a reliable binary segmentation mask for labelling pixels in microscopy images as cell, or not cell.

We have constructed a series of Loop assembly vectors suitable for chloroplast transformation. These enable rapid construction of new genes that are suitable for delivery to the Marchantia chloroplast genome.

We have published our work on transcription factor binding during C4 photosynthesis (Borba et al., 2018; Burgess et al., 2019).

We have expanded the tools for engineering dicot secondary cell walls, generating novel xylan structures in Arabidopsis.

Identification of two new families of carbohydrate-active enzymes from Euglena: a new family GH149 (Kuhaudomlarp et al., 2018) and GH161 (Kuhaudomlarp et al., 2019).

Genome editing tools and technologies developed in the Patron lab (Workpackage D) were applied to generate potatoes that putatively contain digestion-resistant starches with potential nutritional benefits (Tuncel et al 2019). The impact on the gut microbiome of starches produced in this study will shortly be investigated by the Warren Lab at the Quadram institute, using mice with humanised gut microbiomes.

We are evaluating the potential of cereal endosperm as platform for cytosolic expression of enzymes able to synthesise glucans. The work was in part funded by BBSRC grant BB/K006517/1, and is in preparation for publication.

We have exploited available genome sequence resources to carry out a large-scale investigation of triterpene biosynthesis across the Brassicaceae (Liu et al. New Phytologist 2019). Our results indicate that plant genomes are remarkably plastic, and that dynamic Genome Neighbourhoods (GNs) generate new biosynthetic pathways by shuffling the genes encoding a core palette of triterpene diversifying enzymes, presumably in response to strong environmental selection pressure.

We have investigated how plant biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) are maintained and diversified at the within species level, resulting in the first genetic evidence supporting co-inheritance of metabolic gene clustering in plants.

We have developed a systematic approach to mining the Reaxys Natural Product Databases (RNPD), allowing the surveying of natural oxidation diversity of triterpene scaffolds.

We have elucidated the function of a suite of new triterpene biosynthetic enzymes, including enzymes responsible for biosynthesis of insecticidal limonoids (Hodgson et al. PNAS), antimicrobial defense compounds (Leveau et al. New Phytol), (Louveau et al. Plant Cell), (Orme et al. PNAS 2019), and enzymes comprising a novel gene cluster in the Brassicaceae (Liu et al. New Phytologist 2019).

We have published a highlight article (Stephenson et al. Natural Product Reports 2019) on novel triterpene stereochemistry that we have discovered in an earlier collaborative project. This stereochemistry represents a potentially transformative discovery in triterpene biosynthesis, breaking a dogmatic dichotomy which has existed for over 60 years.

We have published our work on host responses to oomycete infection in an early-divergent land plant lineage (Carella et al., 2019; Carella et al., 2018).

Using the M. paleacea genome as foundation, we have analysed the conservation of the symbiosis signaling pathway and related genes across a wide range of species. This has revealed invariant conservation of the Sym pathway in all species accommodating intracellular symbioses, including M. paleacea, but not M. polymorpha. Such conservation is independent of the symbionts and present in many diverse intracellular symbioses

We have demonstrated through biochemical approaches and transcomplementation that the Sym pathway components of M. paleacea are functionally conserved with their orthologs in legumes.

After challenges establishing Cas9 mutagenesis in M. palecea, we have finally been able to generate knockout mutants in this plant. The first genes mutated are NSP1 and NSP2.

Promoter-GUS fusion analyses in M. paleacea have revealed reporters activated at different stages of arbuscular mycorrhizal colonisation.
We have submitted our work on M. paleacea for publication, currently under review and have placed the paper on Biorxiv.

Information regarding the construction and use of the new pHRE and pHREAC expression vectors has been published and the vectors themselves have been deposited with AddGene. This has made them accessible to the plant community and a number of requests for plasmids have already been received.

The utility of synthetic viral capsids for the production of novel diagnostic reagents has been demonstrated through their use in the selection of synthetic antibody equivalents (Adhirons) and by the creation of new controls for PCR-based diagnostics.

2020-2021

Highlights in research output for the last year include:

Work from the Lomonossoff group demonstrated the engineering of plant virus capsids to present foreign viral epitopes and to act as synthetic containers for heterologous virus nucleic acids. They showed that plant-made dengue virus-like particles produced by co-expression of structural and non-structural proteins induced a humoral immune response in mice (Ponndorf et al., 2020), and that chimeric hepatitis B virus-Like particles bearing an epitope of hepatitis E virus capsid could be efficiently produced by transient expression in Nicotiana benthamiana (Zamanova et al., 2021). Further, they showed that synthetic bluetongue virus particles could be exploited as nanoreactors for enzyme delivery, in a way that could be useful for cancer therapy (Theuenman et al., 2021).

This work has expanded the range of virus-like particles (VLPs) that can be produced in plants to include those of enveloped viruses, such as dengue virus. Further, they have utilised the ability of CPMV VLPs to encapsidate bespoke RNA molecules to develop qRT-PCR positive controls for the diagnosis of Covid-19. These have been assessed in collaboration with the Earlham Institute (EI) and St. George's Hospital, University of London (SGUL) and are currently being deployed by the Norwich Testing Initiative NTI).

The Howe lab exploited a laboratory-based adaptive evolution system to select for cyanobacterial strains (Synechococcus elongatus PCC 11801) with improved tolerance for solvents (Srivasta et al., 2020). The n-butanol evolved strain could tolerate up to 32 g/L ethanol, thereby making it a promising host for photosynthetic production of biofuels via metabolic engineering.

The Harwood lab published new protocols for efficient Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of wheat ( Hayta et al., 2021) and CRISPR/Cas9 based genome editing in wheat (Smedley et al., 2021). These are important technical advances for engineering in monocots.

The Haseloff lab published a description of the OpenPlant toolkit, a set of interlinked biological resources and techniques to develop Marchantia as facile testbed for bioengineering in plants. These include a robust and simple system of vectors for nuclear and chloroplast transformation and genome editing. These provided the basis for building and testing a modular library of standardised DNA elements with highly desirable properties. The resources have been combined into a toolkit for plant bioengineering that is accessible for laboratories without access to traditional facilities for plant biology research (Sauret-Gueto et al., 2020). The toolkit is being made available under the terms of the OpenMTA and will facilitate the establishment of common standards and the use of this simple plant as testbed for synthetic biology.

In addition, the Haseloff lab has continued to develop advanced genetic circuits. In collaboration with Microsoft Research they engineered a circuit that triggered mutual inhibition between E. coli populations, mediated by artificial morphogens (Grant et al., 2020). They showed that mutual inhibition alone is sufficient to produce stable domains of gene expression and could be a useful tool for creating synthetic biological patterns.

The Patron lab continues to contribute to the development of new principles and practices in DNA part composition and assembly for plant systems. They have collaborated with the Haseloff lab on the generation of the Marchantia DNA toolkit, particularly with the development of miniaturised, high throughput robotic approaches for fast assembly (Sauret-Gueto et al., 2020). Further, Nicola has published an influential review that describes the technological advances that have lead to recent advances in model-informed rational design, and their successful application to the engineering of plant gene regulation and metabolism (Patron, 2020).

The Osbourn lab explored mechanisms for generation and maintenance of biosynthetic gene clusters in plants. The explored the properties of a model biosynthetic gene cluster (the thalianol cluster) in Arabidopsis and its close relatives (Liu et al., 2020a). They identified chromosomal inversion as a molecular mechanism that may shuffle more distant genes into the cluster, to enabling cluster compaction. Antagonistic natural selection pressures were thought likely involved in shaping the occurrence and maintenance of this gene cluster. The collaborative team also performed an extensive analysis of the chromosomal topology of biosynthetic gene clusters and their positioning in nuclear space (Nützmann et al., 2020). They demonstrated that plant biosynthetic gene clusters reside in highly interactive domains that undergo marked changes in local conformation and nuclear positioning in different organs. Metabolic gene clusters rank among the most dynamic regions in the genome of Arabidopsis. They then exploited available genome sequence resources to investigate triterpene biosynthesis across the Brassicaceae. Their results indicated that these plant genomes were remarkably plastic, and that dynamic genome neighbourhoods generate new biosynthetic pathways in different lineages by shuffling the genes encoding a core palette of triterpene-diversifying enzymes (Liu et al., 2020b). The work sheds light on the basis for diversification of specialised metabolism in plants, through natural combinatorial shuffling of enzyme families, which can be mimicked using synthetic biology to engineer diverse bioactive molecules.

The Oldroyd lab published an important analysis of 271 transcriptomes and 116 plant genomes spanning the entire land-plant diversity, and demonstrated that a common symbiosis signalling pathway co-evolved with intracellular endosymbioses, from the ancestral arbuscular mycorrhiza to the more recent ericoid and orchid mycorrhizae in angiosperms and ericoid-like associations of bryophytes. By contrast, species forming exclusively extracellular symbioses, such as ectomycorrhizae, and those forming associations with cyanobacteria, have lost this signalling pathway. This work unifies intracellular symbioses, revealing conservation in their evolution across 450 million yr of plant diversification (Radhakrishnan et al., 2020).

The Smith lab (Cambridge) described novel riboswitches that could be used for engineering of gene expression in the green alga, Chlamydomonas (Mershahi et al., 2020). They took a mutational approach to determine functionally important nucleotide residues in a thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) riboswitch in the THI4 gene of Chlamydomonas. This allowed them to carry out an aptamer swap using THIC aptamers from Chlamydomonas and Arabidopsis. These chimeric riboswitches displayed a distinct specificities and a range of responses to different ligands. The study demonstrated the ease of use of 5'UTR DNA parts for regulating gene output and controlled production of high-value compounds in Chlamydomonas. This approach to gene design will facilitate the generation of circuits for synthetic biology and metabolic engineering of microalgae.

The Hibberd lab discovered a bipartite transcription factor module controlling expression in the bundle sheath of Arabidopsis (Dickinson et al., 2020). They identified cis-elements and transcription factors driving expression in bundle sheath strands. Upstream of the bundle sheath preferentially expressed MYB76 gene, we identified a region necessary and sufficient for expression containing two cis-elements associated with the MYC and MYB families of transcription factors. The findings are important for understanding the spatial patterning of gene expression and mechanisms associated with the evolution of C4 photosynthesis. The work also provides a short tuneable sequence for manipulating gene expression in the bundle sheath.

The Webb lab analyzed the diel and circadian leaf transcriptomes in the barley cultivar 'Bowman' and derived introgression lines harboring mutations in EARLY FLOWERING3 (ELF3), LUX ARRHYTHMO1 (LUX1), and EARLY MATURITY7 (EAM7) (Müller et al., 2020). The elf3 and lux1 mutants exhibited abolished circadian transcriptome oscillations under constant conditions, whereas eam7 maintained oscillations of ˜30% of the circadian transcriptome. However, day/night cues fully restored transcript oscillations in all three mutants and thus compensated for a disrupted oscillator in the arrhythmic barley clock mutants elf3 and lux1. Nevertheless, elf3, but not lux1, affected the phase of the diel oscillating transcriptome and thus the integration of external cues into the clock. Using dynamical modeling, we predicted a structure of the barley circadian oscillator and interactions of its individual components with day/night cues. Their findings provide a valuable resource for exploring the function and output targets of the circadian clock and for further investigations into the diel and circadian control of the barley transcriptome.

An OpenPlant student project (PuntSeq, https://www.biomaker.org/projects/gardenseq-chasing-the-invisible-diversity-of-microbial-life-forms-in-vegetable-garden-beds-with-a-portable-dna-sequencer) that was first funded in 2017 has been published in eLife (Urban et al., 2020). The team developed a simple, fast, cost-effective and remotely accessible freshwater diagnostics workflow centred around the portable nanopore sequencing technology. Using defined compositions and spatiotemporal microbiota from surface water of an example river in Cambridge (UK), they drew up optimised experimental and bioinformatics guidelines, including a benchmark with twelve taxonomic classification tools for nanopore sequences. They found that nanopore metagenomics could depict the hydrological core microbiome and fine temporal gradients in line with complementary physicochemical measurements. In a public health context, these data feature relevant sewage signals and pathogen maps at species level resolution. The work has provided proof-of-principle that portable sequencing devices will open new avenues for environmental monitoring.
Exploitation Route The key findings of the OpenPlant initiative have been in the areas of open technologies for plant synthetic biology, and interdisciplinary exchange and responsible innovation for improvement of sustainable agriculture and conservation. These are enabling:

1. The latest generation of cell-free expression systems provide DNA programmable outputs from GMO-free components lyophilised on paper. This allows sophisticated experiments in low resource settings - simple to run, no requirement for refrigeration, no need for autoclaving. We have assembled a team of top scientists, educators and international development specialists in order to develop modular, open curriculum materials.
2. We have implemented the Biomaker initiative internationally, and run workshops with a number of partners in Africa and Latin America to explore open curriculum development. We have extended Biomaker to introduce new DIY instrumentation and cell-free programmable systems, as well as document projects at www.hackster.io/biomaker to reach a much wider audience (>1,000,000 registered users).
3. The OpenPlant Forum continues to provide a forum for technical exchange with a theme of engineering for bioproduction in plants, and we continue to provide new tools for mis-expression and DNA editing of transcription networks in plants. This is in line with our interest in identifying a wider range of regulatory genes that can be used as effectors for reprogramming plant development and metabolism. We are taking a systematic and open approach to analysis of all transcription factors (398) in Marchantia polymorpha, and vectors and DNA parts are being made available via the OpenMTA from Addgene.
4. Chloroplasts are major sites for metabolic flux and biosynthesis in plants with a small genome (70-220 Kb). Chloroplast transformation and can result in hyperproduction of proteins, sometimes accumulating to a level of more than 50% of soluble protein in the plant. We have developed an open engineering platform for building and testing synthetic chloroplast genomes in Marchantia.
5. The pending influx of thousands of new plant genome sequences provides an opportunity for efficient identification of metabolic enzymes and regulatory elements by bioinformatics. This will provide a toolbox for engineering the bioproduction of new high value products.
6. HyperTrans in planta expression and Cas9-mediated genome surgery continue to undergo rapid development, especially as tools for testing gene circuits and introducing engineered traits into crop species.
7. Transient plant expression technology is proving to be a rapid and powerful means of prototyping candidate plant natural product biosynthetic genes and pathways predicted on the basis of genomics. Building on our success to date, we are developing this platform in order to be able to systematically access 'designer' molecules and analogs for specific applications at preparative scale.
8. The simple genome and exposed nature of Marchantia development allows the prospect of assembling complete digital models of the simple plant. Whole organism models would bring together the genetic, physical and chemical processes of growth, at different scales. While an ambitious goal, even partial models will prove useful as testbeds for engineering experiments.
Sectors Agriculture

Food and Drink

Chemicals

Education

Energy

Manufacturing

including Industrial Biotechology

Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology
URL https://www.openplant.org
 
Description 2014-2015 • Funding of 16 mini-grants that incorporate broad interdisciplinarity and collaboration between Cambridge and Norwich - including hardware, wetware development and support for collaboration between OpenPlant and African scientists. • Support for a joint Cambridge-JIC iGEM2015 team in the Hardware Track. • Support for a Synbio Beta Activate event in Cambridge, to promote entrepreneurial interactions. • Organisation of the OpenPlant Forum and international exchange. • Delivery of two summer schools on Plant Synthetic Biology and CRISPR Technology in Plants, co-sponsored by ERA-SynBio and Plant Methods/GarNET, respectively. • Delivery of three Science, Art and Writing educational workshops, and two school outreach events. 2015-2016 • Funded of 30 mini-grants that incorporate broad interdisciplinarity and collaboration between Cambridge and Norwich, including projects for SynBio training and capacity building in Africa and resources for schools and universities in South America. • Cambridge-JIC iGEM2015 team won a gold medal at the international Jamboree, with a hardware project entitled "OpenScope". • Support for a joint Cambridge-JIC iGEM2016 undergraduate team with a plant-based project: chloroplast engineering in Chlamydomonas. Obtained co-sponsorship from Cambridge Consultants and Wellcome Trust/BBSRC/SEB fund. • Developing collaborative projects through the Virtual Institute of Responsible Innovation. • OpenPlant researchers contribute to a Bioengineering Horizon Scanning Exercise run by CSER. Workshop in November 2016. Outcomes will be published in a co-authored paper. • Responsible and Open Innovation workshop with Dr. Kathy Liddell, Law Faculty, Cambridge. • OpenPlant continues to work with international IP working group and collaborate with the Biobricks Foundation to implement OpenMTA and facilitate exchange of DNA parts. • OpenPlant participated in the inaugural meeting of BioNet group at Asilomar and supports an open technology platform for exchange and tracking of biomaterials (http://www.bionet.io). • OpenPlant is supporting a workshop on 'Genetic Resources in the Age of the Nagoya Protocol and gene/genome synthesis' in November 2016 (led by Dominic Berry, Edinburgh). • Organised OpenPlant All Hands meeting for scientific exchange, Newmarket. • Participated in Open Technology for Biology workshop, Chile. • OpenTechnology Week events in Cambridge, including Technology for the Bottom Billion workshop and Makethon, coordinated with the Centre for Global Equality. • Workshops on ethics and openness, outreach for OpenPlant scientists with the SAW Trust, and BBSRC Media Training (March 2016). Also ran joint training workshops and provided support for synthetic biology outreach activities at Edinburgh SBRC. • Showcased OpenPlant science in interactive exhibits and workshops at festivals and schools workshops, including Latitude Festival (Suffolk; July 2016). • Nineteen graduate students are participating in projects funded by the OpenPlant Fund. Three PhD students have been recruited directly to OpenPlant (Cambridge) this year. • Undergraduates have formed a student society for Synthetic Biology at the University of Cambridge (http://cusbs.soc.srcf.net) with OpenPlant support. • Students and postdocs at OpenPlant institutes are being recruited to share projects, resources and equipment, through ROC, a group of self organised, highly effective junior researchers 2016-2017 • Outreach and Responsible Innovation • Revision and launch of new OpenPlant branding and website (Jan 2017). • Launched new website, www.biomaker.org, to promote SynBio SRI, OpenPlant Fund and Biomaker Challenge projects (Jun 2017). • OpenPlant organised and participated in a wide range of workshops over the last year: • Training workshop on LithographX for plant image analysis, organised by Haseloff group, delivered by software developer, Dr Pierre Barbier de Reuille (Cambridge, Aug 2016) • Training workshop on the BY2 cell pack system ("cookies"; developed by Fraunhofer Institute, Aachen, Germany), run by the Lomonossoff group (Norwich, Jul 2016). • Delivered two cell-free expression workshops with Vincent Noireaux (2016) and Keith Pardee (2017). • Established a working group to develop new, open curriculum materials based on cell-free and other fast and frugal technologies (Jul 2017) • Presented at standards & responsible governance (PAGIT) workshop (London, Mar 2017) • OpenPlant & Earham DNA Foundry co-sponsored a BBSRC-GCRF funded workshop (S. Africa, Feb 2017). Produced report on capacity building for future bioeconomy in Africa. • Participation in working group on Plant Genetic Resources and Sustainable Development Goals: Needs, Rights and Opportunities (Rockerfeller Foundation, Bellagio Center, Nov 2016). Report was submitted to Plant Genetic Resources in Food and Agriculture Treaty. • Workshop on Genetic resources in the age of the Nagoya Protocol and gene/genome synthesis, with Edinburgh University Engineering Life Project (Cambridge, Nov 2016). • Public SAW workshop "the Global Garden" run as a collaboration between OpenPlant, the SAW Trust, social scientist Dr Nick Lee (WISB) and the Writers Centre Norwich. • Presentation on SynBio and Nagoya Protocol at HVCfP workshop (London, Jan 2017). • CSER Biorisk workshop (Cambridge, Mar 2017). • Talk and discussion panel at Kew Garden's "State of the World's Plants" Symposium. • Outreach and public engagement activities: • Delivered two SAW workshops to disseminate the SAW model and share best practice with SynthSys & UK Centre for Mammalian Synthetic Biology (University of Edinburgh). • Norwich Science Festival (Oct 2016): Two-day OpenPlant Exhibit; talk on 'The green vaccine machine' (Lomonossoff). • Youth STEMM Award Mid-Year Conference OpenPlant Exhibit for yrs 9 + 10 (Jan 2017). • Talks on 'Finding drugs in the garden' (Osbourn), 'Just Eat Your Greens - A New Way of Vaccinating?' (Lomonossoff) and '20,000 Leagues Under the Microscope: Viruses & Nanomachines' (Castells-Graells) at Norwich Pint of Science Festival (May 2017). • The SAW Trust delivered four workshops in primary schools inspired by the work of the Lomonossoff lab, Osbourn lab, biodiversity, plant evolution and genetics. • Secured funding to build DNA robot for Cambridge Science Festival as part of OpenPlant exhibit "Synthetic Biology for the Senses" (Matthewman & Jenni Rant, SAW, Mar 2017). • OpenPlant and SAW teamed up to deliver a science tent for exploration of plant natural products in "Marvellous Medicines" at Boomtown festival (Aug 2017). • Open tools and technologies • The OpenPlant Fund supported £5K mini-projects: 14 in July 2016, 10 in Dec 2016, and 12 new proposals to be pitched in Jul 2017. • Establishment of the Biomaker Challenge: 41 £1K micro-projects to promote interdisciplinary exchange in Cambridge and Norwich. • Supporting development of Biomakespace in old MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Building under leadership of Dr. Jenny Molloy, due to open 2017. • Established Norwich Biomakers network: https://www.meetup.com/Norwich-Biomakers/ • Supported and contributed to the OpenMTA initiative: website at http://www.openmta.org/ which includes simple text and video descriptions of the OpenMTA • Cambridge-JIC iGEM 2016 team was awarded a gold medal and was winner of the Best Plant Synthetic Biology prize at the iGEM Giant Jamboree, Boston. • Dr Nicola Patron awarded catalyst grant by SynBioLEAP to pursue making open-source enabling technologies for plant biotechnology available to less-developed world regions • OpenPlant Fund project "Big Algae Open Experiment" (http://bigalgae.com/) joined the OpenPlant stand at Latitude Festival (Jul 2016). • Roger Castells-Graells (PhD student, JIC), won a UEA Engagement Award in recognition of his work on OpenPlant Fund project "Accessible 3D Models of Molecules". • Supported open source hardware documentation and repository: www.DocuBricks.com 2017-2018 • Jenny Molloy awarded Shuttleworth Fellowship to explore impact of open technologies on innovation in biology at an international scale. • The OpenPlant Fund has funded 19 new projects over the last year, to bring the total to 71 interdisciplinary and cross-institute projects. • Organisation of cell-free hands-on workshops to encourage the development of cell-free technologies through the OpenPlant Fund • Initiated two projects working with African researchers, with JR Biotek Foundation Workshop in Cambridge, attended by 20 African researchers from 8 different countries and culminating in the UK-Africa Food Security Symposium, and working with the Kumasi Hive and Lab_13 project in Ghana to develop resources for teaching synthetic biology in low-resource settings. • Organised the second annual Biomaker Challenge for interdisciplinary teams to build low-cost instruments for biology. In two years, we have funded 61 projects involving close to 200 participants from Cambridge, Norwich and beyond. • Implementation of a 5-session training series aimed at teaching basic hardware and software for scientists. • Adopted the visual programming interface XOD to tackled some of the bottlenecks and difficulties that non-programmers face when building electronics. • Publication of tutorial material at www.biomaker.org. • Establishment of the Norwich Biomakers group to bring together an interdisciplinary network interested in biology, design, technology, engineering, electronics, software, art and more - to gain a membership of 180 members in the first year. • Ran ten Norwich Biomaker sessions over the first year. The network has led to several new collaborations. • The 2018 OpenPlant Forum focused on engineering plants for bioproduction, and explored a range of examples of products that can be made in plants, tools for engineering for bioproduction and both the global challenges and opportunities for harnessing biodiversity. • The Forum was coupled with the OpenPlant Fund pitches, and a Curriculum Hacks event showcasing educational activities and resources developed through OpenPlant Fund and Biomaker Challenge projects, as well as by partners such as Science and Plants for Schools (SAPS), Cambridge Biomakespace, and the University of East Anglia. • A new working group was established to investigate new models for documentation, distribution and publication by bioengineers - in particular focusing on documentation and distribution of characterisation data for DNA parts. • We have delivered seven OpenPlant-themed workshops in primary schools, designed and delivered by research scientists in collaboration with the SAW Trust. • We have engaged with the public by delivering interactive exhibits at the Norwich Science Festival and Cambridge Science Festival, and delivered science activities at Kidztown at the Boomtown Fair music festival and Latitude mixed arts Festival. • SAW developed training workshops to enable dissemination and to share best practice with other research centres, SynthSys and the UK Centre for Mammalian Synthetic Biology (University of Edinburgh), and the Warwick Integrative Synthetic Biology Centre. • An International conference established by the SAW Trust in collaboration with Norfolk County Council brought together education specialists from across the world locally and internationally to share learning platforms and develop ideas, at which SAW presented its school projects with OpenPlant. • Ran the Global Garden workshop, a collaborative project with the SAW Trust and Social Scientist Dr Nick Lee (Warwick Integrative Synthetic Biology Centre). • Secured funding from the Biochemical Society to create and exhibit a machine that explains the processes of transcription and translation in a fun and interactive way - DNA Dave the robot. 2018-2019 In this year of the OpenPlant grant, we have combined the OpenPlant Fund call with the Biomaker Challenge, and offered teams an initial £750 plus a hardware package worth £250. After the first stage, teams could apply for an additional £2000 follow-on funding. We have had 27 diverse teams, of which most of them applied for and received follow-on funding. At the Biomaker Fayre, a whole array of innovative and creative Biomaker projects returned to Cambridge to showcase their final products. Interesting discussions were held and ideas for follow-on activities were made. We have supported various capacity building project in Africa, including (1) a molecular biology workshop in Benin 'Reach and Teach Science in Africa': Strengthening Agricultural Research Capacity to Tackle Food Insecurity in Africa, and (2) a speed breeding workshop in Kenya "Speed Breeding for Accelerated Crop Improvement in East Africa". OpenLabTools activities are delivered through the Biomaker Challenge. The Biomaker Challenge was awarded £80K from GCRF for implementation of the programme in Ghana, Egypt. South Africa and Ethiopia to stimulate training and local capacity building and innovation. The annual OpenPlant Forum explores potential applications of reprogrammed biological systems and the wider implications of the potentially disruptive new technologies. The 2019 Forum was themed: "Smart design for the future Bioeconomy". It was well attended and received positive feedback. The Forum was coupled with Biomaker Challenge pitches showcasing educational activities and resources developed. We delivered new OpenPlant-themed workshops in primary schools, designed and delivered by research scientists in collaboration with SAW, influencing the educational approach to these topics. We engaged with the public by delivering an inspiring interactive exhibit at the London Lates ("Year of the Engineer", Oct 2018). SAW developed a training workshop to enable dissemination and to share best practice with other research centres. In November 2018, SAW ran a workshop session for "Talking Plants", the annual conference of the Botanic Gardens Education Network, hosted at Cambridge Botanic Gardens. Garden staff from across the UK's network came together to explore ways of bringing plant science to a wider audience. We ran a Global Gardens workshop at Cambridge Botanic Gardens in October 2019 as part of the city-wide Festival of Ideas. We are prepared a 'Build your own DNA Dave' workshop for schools, helping schools to build a machine that explains the processes of transcription and translation in a fun and interactive way. The availability of vectors for Hyper-Trans plant-based expression should increase the uptake of this technology worldwide. The methods for the production of novel diagnostics based on synthetic virus-like particles produced in plants should enhance the ability to control the spread of infectious diseases. 2019-2021 OpenPlant ran the Biomaker Challenge over 2019 and 2020 (36 projects, documented at: https://www.biomaker.org/projectindex). The impact of the Covid-19 lockdown has led to developed a 'No-Code Programming for Biology' initiative, with a focus on online delivery of training materials. Developed in response to observations that some biologists face experience barriers when undertaking Biomaker projects, this initiative aims to provide training for biologists in electronics and hardware, as well as easy and efficient programming. By providing additional training, we aimed to increase the reach, scope and accessibility of Biomaker in future. The No-Code Programming for Biology initiative was designed to introduce biologists to Arduino-based microcontrollers, sensor electronics, displays and actuators that are useful for measuring and controlling biological systems, as well as to provide the no-code programming tools that can be used to build integrated bioinstrument prototypes. Training in the use of these new tools allows participants to build a wide range of instruments and devices that are potentially useful for experiments in the lab and field. These new skills can be enabling in many ways. The components for this type of instrumentation are often very cheap, especially when compared with off- the-shelf commercial solutions. The use of simple hardware and software resources allow easy modification, extension and repair of custom instruments. The use of open-source components and systems promotes sharing of information and set up of collaborative projects, which creates a growing set of resources for the community to draw from. We have developed free training and distance learning materials: (i) Beginner's Guide: An illustrated step-by-step guide to using the Biomaker Beginner's Kit. (ii) Beginner's work-through tutorial: A XOD tutorial file to accompany the Beginner's Guide. (iii) Workshop recordings: Recordings of online workshops to for remote demonstration of tasks from the Beginner's Guide. (iv) Expansion Kit Handbook: a step-by-step guide to using the Biomaker Expansion Kit (v) Expansion Kit video tutorials: a series of video tutorials to accompany the Expansion Kit Handbook. (vi) Online Course (in development): an online course (MOOC) hosted on the Canvas platform. A central location to collate our online learning materials. SAW started developing a 'Build your own DNA Dave' workshop for schools in 2019, and the first session with schools was held on March 2020 (https://www.openplant.org/dna-dave). We are having another robot built 'RNA Ruth' that will have increased functionality to enable further explanation on DNA sequences and the important role of RNA. We believe that RNA is becoming a term increasingly used in mainstream media and so we need to ensure we have the best tools to explain its role in biology to the public at future events. We are currently developing a video version of the 'Build your own DNA Dave' workshop for schools which we plan to trail with schools who attended the live session last year. We are also creating a dedicated DNA Dave website to host the resources for the project to enable us to share it more widely. In addition, OpenPlant has directly contributed towards the Covid-19 response in various ways: - Jim Haseloff convened an online Biomaker Biodesign2020 Expert group to work on development of tools for Covid-19 detection. The group investigated accessible and low-cost technologies for RT-PCR and LAMP diagnostics, based on state-of-the-art electronics, sensors and 3D printing for thermal control. The group has extended to over 85 participants, and a core group met weekly. Key outputs were publicly shared designs for low cost diagnostic hardware. Collaborative work is ongoing. - Jenny Molloy's partnership with the Ethiopian Biotechnology Institute has enabled them to increase throughput of RNA extraction pipelines and produce enzymes for LAMP assays to diagnose COVID-19. - During lockdown with limited access to the lab, in collaboration with Ginkgo Bioworks, Stanford University and other OpenPlant collaborators such as the Federici group at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, the Molloy group designed the Research in Diagnostics DNA Collection and the establishment of the Reclone Community to support local manufacturing of enzymes for COVID-19 research, building on the Open Enzyme Collection. This toolkit has already been ordered by >30 groups in 21 countries and will be distributed under the Open Material Transfer Agreement (OpenMTA) that was developed by OpenPlant and the Biobricks Foundation. - Jenny Molloy is a Co-I on 500k EUR grant from EDCTP which will support the use of Open Enzyme Collection as part of efforts to locally manufacture enzymes for COVID-19 LAMP diagnostics in Ghana. - The OpenPlant spin-out Iceni Diagnostics has developed a 15-min Covid-19 test that is now to be trialled on thousands. - Movable liquid-handling platforms were relocated from the Earlham Institute to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital to enable automation of the RNA-extraction protocol for Covid-19 detection. - George Lomonossoff's group have expanded the range of virus-like particles (VLPs) that can be produced in plants to include those of enveloped viruses, such as dengue virus. They have utilised the ability of CPMV VLPs to encapsidate bespoke RNA molecules to develop qRT-PCR positive controls for the diagnosis of Covid-19. These were produced using technology developed under OpenPlant, and have been assessed in collaboration with the Earlham Institute (EI) and St. George's Hospital, University of London (SGUL) and are currently being deployed by the Norwich Testing Initiative NTI). 2021-2022 The Biomaker programme has continued to be expanded, with the publication and sharing of new training materials, and a streamlined 3-stage approach to hardware required for training. The restriction of in-person training and project-based learning due to the COVID-19 epidemic has meant that we've needed to exploit online workshops and training sessions. Accordingly, that has allowed us to engage more successfully with international partners, and have developed collaborations in Europe, Africa, US and Latin America. Similarly, the Open Bioeconomy Lab managed by Jenny Molloy, and the SAW Trust directed by Anne Osbourn have benefitted from a shift to online tools for wider engagement, and these are providing very useful support as we move back to in-person and hybrid activities.
First Year Of Impact 2014
Sector Agriculture, Food and Drink,Education,Electronics,Environment,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

Economic

Policy & public services
 
Description Advice for Government Report on Synthetic Cell.
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to new or Improved professional practice
 
Description Attended Roundtable meeting to discuss how Government might further help in the UK's engineering biology sector.
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description BBSRC IBBE Strategy Panel
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Membership of a guideline committee
Impact The Strategic panel provided advice and guidance for the setting up of the Networks in Industrial Biotechnology & Bioenergy (NIBBs), which aim to foster increased awareness and interaction between academics and industrialists in the bioeconomy. It was also important for the thinking behind the IB Catalysts, joint with Innovate UK & EPSRC. Many of the grants and proof-of-concept awards are aimed at increased sustainability through the use of IB solutions
URL http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/funding/filter/networks-in-industrial-biotechnology/
 
Description Discussion with Thérèse Coffey MP - Defra Secretary of State
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
Impact Precision Breeding Act passed - highly relevant to JIC science and future crop breeding science.
URL https://www.jic.ac.uk/news/game-changing-genetic-technology-bill-passes-into-law-in-england/
 
Description Group members attending first regional cross-sectoral ABS workshop (Implementing the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing in the UK) at the John Innes Centre, 22.11.16
Geographic Reach Local/Municipal/Regional 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact Increased knowledge of implementation of Nagoya Protocol
 
Description Hosted Prof Lionel Clarke at JIC to discuss future directions of synthetic biology in the UK in preparation for discussions with government
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description Participation in UK-Kenya synthetic biology workshop at Imperial College
Geographic Reach Africa 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
 
Description Plant bioengineering and global climate change summit
Geographic Reach Multiple continents/international 
Policy Influence Type Participation in a guidance/advisory committee
 
Description Visit by Minister of State in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Participation in a guidance/advisory committee
 
Description 21EBTA Engineering specialised metabolism and new cellular architectures in plants
Amount £1,517,514 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/W014173/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2022 
End 01/2024
 
Description 21ENGBIO - Engineering Nucleosome Positioning in Plants
Amount £99,849 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/W010933/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2023 
End 02/2024
 
Description A world of virus structures: understanding how non-icosahedral capsids are built
Amount £1,000,000 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/T004703/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2020 
End 02/2023
 
Description AMPlify: redistributed manufacturing of antimicrobial peptides for wound care
Amount £68,622 (GBP)
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2021 
End 09/2021
 
Description Agri-Inno: Stimulating Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Egypt's Agricultural Sector
Amount £28,520 (GBP)
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2017 
End 01/2017
 
Description An improved bioproduction system for proteins and small molecules
Amount £459,425 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/P010490/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2017 
End 06/2021
 
Description BBSRC GCRF IAA
Amount £9,500 (GBP)
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2016 
End 03/2017
 
Description BBSRC High Value Chemical from Plants Network Proof of Concept Funds
Amount £57,099 (GBP)
Funding ID POC-OCT15-03 (OSBOURN) 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2016 
End 11/2016
 
Description BBSRC IAA
Amount £8,200 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/S506710/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2019 
End 03/2019
 
Description BBSRC IAA
Amount £15,000 (GBP)
Funding ID RG96069/Schornack /24597 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 12/2021 
End 03/2022
 
Description BBSRC Responsive Mode
Amount £459,425 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/P010490/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2017 
End 09/2020
 
Description BTT EAGER - Breakthrough Technologies to Advance Crop Breeding
Amount £400,000 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/S020853/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2019 
End 02/2021
 
Description Bio-cosmetics from Lithops
Amount £5,000 (GBP)
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2015 
End 03/2016
 
Description Bio-engineering non-sugar modifications of saponins - BBSRC CTP studentship
Amount £41,000 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/R505584/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2017 
End 10/2021
 
Description Bioinformatics and Biological Resources (BBR) Fund
Amount £603,560 (GBP)
Funding ID BBS/E/T/000GP076 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2016 
End 03/2017
 
Description Business Interaction Voucher
Amount £10,000 (GBP)
Funding ID PHYCBIV-23 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Department Networks in Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy (NIBB)
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2018 
End 10/2018
 
Description COVALENT MODIFICATION AND REGULATION OF PROTEINS BY CO2 USING CHLAMYDOMONAS AS A MODEL SYSTEM
Amount $1,050,000 (USD)
Funding ID RGP0058/2020 
Organisation Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country France
Start 09/2020 
End 09/2023
 
Description COVID-19 diagnostics for Africa
Amount € 499,933 (EUR)
Funding ID RIA2020EF-2918 
Organisation Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) 
Department European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership
Sector Public
Country Netherlands
Start 09/2020 
End 01/2021
 
Description Development of reagents to study and combat emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants
Amount £14,500 (GBP)
Organisation United Kingdom Research and Innovation 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2021 
End 09/2022
 
Description EBioAct: Environmentally sustainable production of bioactive triterpenes
Amount £1,680,889 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/Y007751/1 
Organisation United Kingdom Research and Innovation 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2024 
End 02/2026
 
Description EPSRC GCRF Diagnostics, Prosthetics and Orthotics
Amount £1,541,002 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/R014000/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2018 
End 02/2021
 
Description ERA CoBioTech
Amount € 1,643,000 (EUR)
Funding ID BB/021554/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2018 
End 03/2021
 
Description EVOCATE Function and evolution of plant cell wall architecture for sustainable technologies ERC advanced award
Amount £2,153,561 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/X027120/1 
Organisation United Kingdom Research and Innovation 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2022 
End 08/2027
 
Description Early Career Fellowship for Dr. Facundo Romani
Amount £96,000 (GBP)
Organisation The Leverhulme Trust 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2023 
End 09/2026
 
Description Engineering Quillaja saponin biosynthesis pathways for bio-production of QS-21
Amount £1,223,712 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/R005508/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2018 
End 07/2020
 
Description Engineering gene regulatory networks to design disease-resistant crops
Amount £1,409,847 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/Y007786/1 
Organisation United Kingdom Research and Innovation 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2024 
End 02/2026
 
Description Engineering saponin biosynthesis pathways for bio-production of novel vaccine adjuants
Amount £646,458 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/W017857/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2022 
End 04/2024
 
Description Engineering saponin surfactants
Amount £71,590 (GBP)
Organisation Unilever 
Sector Private
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2018 
End 06/2019
 
Description Equipping the Next Generation of INnovative biological Engineers to develop disease diagnostics for Africa (BioENGINE Africa STAR)
Amount £94,850 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/T01735X/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2020 
End 03/2022
 
Description Exploiting recent development in nano-rod technology for creations of Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) Cantilever Tip.
Amount £88,813 (GBP)
Organisation United Kingdom Research and Innovation 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2020 
End 04/2021
 
Description Follow on Fund Innovation Fellow Funds - PI Anne Osbourn
Amount £20,000 (GBP)
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2018 
End 05/2020
 
Description GCRF Pump-priming Fund
Amount £80,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Cambridge 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 12/2018 
End 07/2019
 
Description Genome to Natural Products Network Award
Amount £5,500,000 (GBP)
Funding ID U101GM110699 
Organisation National Institutes of Health (NIH) 
Sector Public
Country United States
Start 07/2015 
End 04/2020
 
Description H2020 Grant: Building the product pipeline for commercial demonstration of plant molecular factories
Amount £631,808 (GBP)
Funding ID 774078 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 11/2017 
End 10/2021
 
Description Harnessing enzymes from plants for selective functionalisation of triterpenoid scaffolds
Amount £542,505 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/S016023/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2020 
End 06/2023
 
Description Harnessing plant metabolic diversity for human health
Amount £4,817,214 (GBP)
Funding ID 227375/Z/23/Z 
Organisation Wellcome Trust 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2024 
End 12/2031
 
Description Implementing Algebra guidelines to risk assessments of scale-up of non-native species
Amount £9,500 (GBP)
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2017 
End 10/2017
 
Description Improving regulation of chloroplast gene expression in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii
Amount £2,100 (GBP)
Funding ID SSB-AU032214 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2022 
End 09/2022
 
Description Institute Strategic Funds: Starch analysis on high-amylose potatoes
Amount £5,316 (GBP)
Organisation John Innes Centre 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2018 
End 03/2018
 
Description LCVD: Low-cost Cell-extract Viral Diagnostics
Amount £1,541,002 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/R014000/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2018 
End 01/2021
 
Description Mapping genetic and cellular interactions during growth of a simple plant system
Amount £567,584 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/T007117/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2020 
End 02/2023
 
Description Metabolic characteristics of terrestrial algae and plants in Antarctica - research visit to Antarctica
Amount £74,000 (GBP)
Organisation British Antarctic Survey 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2014 
End 03/2015
 
Description NRP DTP
Amount £120,000 (GBP)
Funding ID MARTIN_J18DTP: Natural blues: structure meets function in plant natural products 
Organisation Norwich Research Park 
Sector Private
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2018 
End 09/2022
 
Description National Biofilms Innovation Centre Proof of Concept Award
Amount £54,158 (GBP)
Funding ID 002POC19029 
Organisation National Biofilms Innovation Centre 
Sector Private
Start 12/2019 
End 05/2020
 
Description Norwich Research Park Translational Fund
Amount £51,119 (GBP)
Funding ID REF 3.1 - Novel commercial saponins from synthetic biology 
Organisation Norwich Research Park 
Sector Private
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2015 
End 06/2016
 
Description Open microreactors for large scale manufacture
Amount £12,500 (GBP)
Organisation United Kingdom Research and Innovation 
Department Global Challenges Research Fund
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2020 
End 05/2021
 
Description OpenBioMAPS: shared tools for accelerating UK bio-manufacturing (awarded to J Haseloff & J Molloy)
Amount £1,269,368 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/Y007808/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2024 
End 02/2026
 
Description OpenPlant Fund
Amount £5,000 (GBP)
Funding ID Engineering Marchantia polymorpha chloroplasts for the production of high-value specialized terpenes - CY219-W08-C 
Organisation OpenPlant Fund 
Sector Academic/University
Start 08/2015 
End 02/2016
 
Description OpenPlant-Earham Foundry GCRF Workshop for Practical Synthetic Biology in Africa
Amount £39,250 (GBP)
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2016 
End 03/2017
 
Description Phytoelectronic soil sensing
Amount £818,226 (GBP)
Funding ID NE/T012293/1 
Organisation Natural Environment Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2020 
End 11/2024
 
Description Playground to Polar - how do we measure Antarctic and UK biodiversity?
Amount £3,000 (GBP)
Organisation The Royal Society 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2017 
End 06/2018
 
Description Producing SARS-Cov-2 Virus-Like Particles to support development of immune-assay diagnostics and vaccines for COVID-19.
Amount £100,202 (GBP)
Organisation United Kingdom Research and Innovation 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2020 
End 03/2021
 
Description Regulation of polyphosphate metabolism in Chlamydomonas and potential for exploitation as phosphorus sink in nutrient recovery systems
Amount £65,772 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/N016033/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2016 
End 10/2019
 
Description Research Fellows Enhancement Award: Early Land Plant mechanisms to accommodate filamentous microbes - Sebastian Schornack
Amount £92,500 (GBP)
Funding ID RGF\EA\180002 
Organisation The Royal Society 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 12/2017 
End 12/2020
 
Description Responsive Mode: Exploiting the power of heterologous expression in plants to discover new virus structures
Amount £563,036 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/R00160X/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2017 
End 09/2020
 
Description Rewriting The Genetic Code: The Algal Plastome As A Testbed For Basic And Applied Studies
Amount £3,146,402 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/W003538/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2022 
End 03/2027
 
Description Scaling up COVID-19 testing through open science hardware and local manufacturing
Amount £20,000 (GBP)
Organisation Cambridge-Africa Alborada Trust 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2020 
End 05/2021
 
Description Science Outreach Grant: The Transcription-Translation Machine
Amount £940 (GBP)
Organisation Biochemical Society 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 12/2016 
End 03/2017
 
Description Scientific Outreach Grant - DNA Dave
Amount £500 (GBP)
Organisation Biochemical Society 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2019 
End 12/2019
 
Description Shuttleworth Fellowship
Amount $261,000 (USD)
Organisation Shuttleworth Foundation 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country South Africa
Start 03/2018 
End 03/2019
 
Description Spores against SARS-CoV-2
Amount € 110,000 (EUR)
Organisation Volkswagen Foundation 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country Germany
Start 01/2021 
End 06/2022
 
Description Strategic Research Initiative for Synthetic Biology
Amount £150,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Cambridge 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2013 
End 10/2016
 
Description Super Follow on Fund: Engineering Quillaja saponin biosynthesis pathways for bio-production of QS-21. 2018-2020 - Prof Anne Osbourn
Amount £1,538,805 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/R005508/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2018 
End 05/2020
 
Description SynBio LEAP Catalyst Grant
Amount $10,000 (USD)
Organisation Synthetic Biology Leadership Excellence Accelerator Program 
Sector Private
Start 03/2018 
End 12/2018
 
Description Syngenta
Amount £71,000 (GBP)
Organisation Syngenta International AG 
Department Syngenta Ltd (Bracknell)
Sector Private
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2016 
End 12/2019
 
Description Synthetic Biology Strategic Research Initiative
Amount £165,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Cambridge 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2016 
End 10/2019
 
Description Synthetic Biology Strategic Research Initiative 2016-2019
Amount £165,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Cambridge 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2016 
End 09/2019
 
Description Targeted gene knockouts in crops using RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease
Amount £603,560 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/N019466/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2016 
End 12/2019
 
Description Targeted gene knockouts in crops using RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease
Amount £603,560 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/N019466/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2016 
End 08/2019
 
Description Towards machine learning-driven prediction of the product chemical space of oxidosqualene cyclases, key enzymes in triterpene diversification
Amount £181,411 (GBP)
Organisation Alan Turing Institute 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2020 
End 06/2021
 
Description Translating Cambridge Synthetic Biology to impact LMIC bioeconomies
Amount £166,886 (GBP)
Organisation University of Cambridge 
Department Isaac Newton Trust
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2021 
End 06/2024
 
Description UK Vaccine Network Project
Amount £1,988,841 (GBP)
Funding ID 16-107-04 
Organisation National Institute for Health Research 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2016 
End 08/2018
 
Description UKVRDN Grant
Amount £1,988,841 (GBP)
Funding ID GHR Project:16/107/04 
Organisation National Institute for Health Research 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2016 
End 08/2018
 
Description Undiscovered High Value Products from Polar Algae.
Amount £19,961 (GBP)
Organisation Unilever 
Sector Private
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2014 
End 03/2015
 
Description University of Cambridge Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty Research Group Award
Amount £1,500 (GBP)
Organisation Andrew W. Mellon Foundation 
Sector Private
Country United States
Start 08/2017 
End 09/2018
 
Description University of Cambridge EPSRC GCRF Workshop Grants
Amount £500 (GBP)
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2016 
End 03/2017
 
Description University of Cambridge SRI/SRN Small Grants
Amount £10,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Cambridge 
Department Isaac Newton Trust
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2017 
End 12/2017
 
Description University of Cambridge SRI/SRN Small Grants
Amount £5,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Cambridge 
Department Isaac Newton Trust
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2016 
End 06/2017
 
Description University of Cambridge SRI/SRN Small Grants
Amount £5,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Cambridge 
Department Isaac Newton Trust
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 12/2017 
End 10/2018
 
Description University of Cambridge Wellcome Trust ISSF Workshop Grant
Amount £4,000 (GBP)
Organisation Wellcome Trust 
Department Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2015 
End 09/2016
 
Description University of Cambridge-JIC iGEM 2016 team
Amount £30,000 (GBP)
Organisation iGEM 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United States
Start 05/2016 
End 11/2016
 
Description Unlocking the chemical potential of plants: Predicting function from DNA sequence for complex enzyme superfamilies
Amount £650,682 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/V015176/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2022 
End 06/2024
 
Description Wellcome Trust ISSF Junior Interdisciplinary Fellowship
Amount £100,000 (GBP)
Organisation Wellcome Trust 
Department Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2017 
End 09/2018
 
Description Wellcome Trust ISSF Junior Interdisciplinary Fellowship
Amount £100,000 (GBP)
Organisation Wellcome Trust 
Department Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2015 
End 09/2016
 
Description iGEM2014
Amount £30,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Cambridge 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2014 
End 11/2014
 
Description iGEM2015
Amount £45,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Cambridge 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2015 
End 11/2015
 
Description smart sustainable plastic packaging from plants S2UPPLANT
Amount £844,880 (GBP)
Funding ID NE/V010565/1 
Organisation Natural Environment Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2020 
End 10/2023
 
Title A simple split luciferase method to assess transcription factor-DNA Interactions 
Description A luminescence-based microplate assay for quantifying the relative affinity of transcription factors for DNA probes. This method uses short, unlabelled DNA probes, which are cheaply obtained, and minimal quantities of recombinant protein with a minimal genetically-encoded tag. We have demonstrated the use of this assay to quantify the affinity of transcription factors to target sequences. We have also applied knowledge of binding affinity to modulate the strength of minimal synthetic plant promoters. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This method has been used to investigate and guide the engineering of plant responses to nutrients. This is important for the development of crops that require fewer applications of agrochemicals. 
 
Title Cell-free expression toolkit for plant proteins 
Description A phytobrick-compatible molecular toolbox containing plasmid acceptors for cell-free expression using Escherichia coli or wheat germ lysates as well as a set of N- and C-terminal tag parts for detection, purification and improved expression/folding. 
Type Of Material Biological samples 
Year Produced 2021 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The toolkit enabled the rapid screening of candidate enzymes to identify those with the desired activity. The toolkit has been requested by a number of other laboratories and has been made available through the Addgene plasmid repository. 
URL https://www.addgene.org/browse/article/28215454/
 
Title E. coli Protein Expression Toolkit 
Description E. coli Protein Expression Toolkit is an all-in-one toolkit to build up constructs to express enzymes. It is a collection of >100 DNA parts including different promoters, RBSs, linkers, tags, reporters etc designed to be assembled in one-pot reaction using BsaI-based Golden-Gate assembly. DNA parts are MoClo, SEVA, Loop and CIDAR assembly compatible. The collection includes: 3 promoters 7 RBS and insulators 9 purification tags, 3 localization signals 5 cleavage sites, flexible linkers 23 genes of which 5 are reporters and 18 are used in diagnostics 2 destination vectors with pink or blue color screening. 
Type Of Material Biological samples 
Year Produced 2020 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact As the toolkit was only made available in late 2020, impact measures have not yet been gathered but will be tracked during 2021. 
URL https://stanford.freegenes.org/collections/open-genes/products/expression-tookit#description
 
Title Establishment of a common syntax for plant synthetic biology 
Description Inventors in the field of mechanical and electronic engineering can access multitudes of components and, thanks to standardization, parts from different manufacturers can be used in combination with each other. The introduction of BioBrick standards for the assembly of characterized DNA sequences was a landmark in microbial engineering, shaping the field of synthetic biology. Here, we describe a standard for Type IIS restriction endonuclease-mediated assembly, defining a common syntax of 12 fusion sites to enable the facile assembly of eukaryotic transcriptional units. This standard has been developed and agreed by representatives and leaders of the international plant science and synthetic biology communities, including inventors, developers and adopters of Type IIS cloning methods. Our vision is of an extensive catalogue of standardized, characterized DNA parts that will accelerate plant bioengineering. To this end we have proposed a common syntax for exchange of DNA parts for plant synthetic biology. This is supported by the international community and has been published. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2015 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The establishment of a common plant syntax has paved the way for the introduction of an Open MTA for material transfer, now trialled and published (Kahl et al. 2018, Nature Biotechnology 36: 923), simple and open systems for recusrsive fabrication of DNA circuits (Pollak et al. 2018, New Phytologist: https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.15625) and for discussions with Addgene, the nonprofit global plasmid repository, archives and distributes plasmids for scientists. These advances are catalytic and we envisage that they will promote and accelerate plant biology research within the UK and internationally. 
 
Title Establishment of a reverse genetics TILLING platform for diploid oat 
Description We have established a TILLING platform for diploid oat (Avena strigosa accession S75) using a sodium azide-generated mutant population that we have generated. The platform has been made available to the international research community through the RevGen platform at the John Innes Centre 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This platform will enable identification of mutants in target genes for scientific research and crop improvement. 
URL https://www.jic.ac.uk/research-impact/technology-platforms/genomic-services/reverse-genetics/
 
Title Improved culture systems for the model plant system, Marchantia polymorpha 
Description Part of a set of new techniques and materials described in "Systematic tools for reprogramming plant gene expression in a simple model, Marchantia polymorpha" by Susanna Sauret-Güeto, Eftychios Frangedakis, Linda Silvestri, Marius Rebmann, Marta Tomaselli, Kasey Markel, Mihails Delmans, Anthony West, Nicola J. Patron, Jim Haseloff. Preprint distributed on BioRxiv, and acceprted for publication at ACS Synthetic Biology. The manuscript describes new techniques and materials useful for low-cost growth of Marchantia plants thoughout the plant's life cycle under sterile conditions. The new approach allows the simple isolation of sterile spores for further transformation work, and a way of producing relatively large amounts of sterile material for bioproducion in the system. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2020 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The technique is becoming widely adopted by other laboratories in the field. 
URL https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.29.971002
 
Title Improved vector system for bioengineering in plants 
Description Part of a set of new techniques and materials described in "Systematic tools for reprogramming plant gene expression in a simple model, Marchantia polymorpha" by Susanna Sauret-Güeto, Eftychios Frangedakis, Linda Silvestri, Marius Rebmann, Marta Tomaselli, Kasey Markel, Mihails Delmans, Anthony West, Nicola J. Patron, Jim Haseloff. Preprint distributed on BioRxiv, and acceprted for publication at ACS Synthetic Biology. The manuscript describes a new set of plant transformation vectors and DNA partsthat are easier to manipulate, and useful for transformation of nuclear or plastid genomes. 
Type Of Material Biological samples 
Year Produced 2020 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Wide international distribution of a free vector and DNA parts kit via the OpenMTA, and deposit with Addgene. 
URL https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.29.971002
 
Title In planta cytometry 
Description Published method for in vivo quantification of plant gene expression in vivo, using combined ratiometric fluorescence measurement and microscopic segmentation. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2012 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Published as Federici F, Dupuy L, Laplaze L, Heisler M & Haseloff J. Integrated genetic and computation methods for in planta cytometry. Nature Methods, 9:483-485 (2012). Forms the basis for a number of new approaches. 
 
Title Loop Assembly 
Description High efficiency methods for DNA assembly are based on sequence overlap between fragments or Type IIS restriction endonuclease cleavage and ligation. These have enabled routine assembly of synthetic DNAs of increased size and complexity. However, these techniques require customisation, elaborate vector sets and serial manipulations for the different stages of assembly. As part of a collaboration between the University of Cambridge, Earlham Institute and the Universidad Católica de Chile. Bernardo Pollak and Fernan Federici have devised a new method for gene assembly based on two Type IIS restriction endonuceases, BsaI and SapI. Loop Assembly allows rapid and efficient production of large DNA constructs, is compatible with widely used Level zero (L0) DNA parts such as Phytobricks, and can be easily automated. Alternate use of two Type IIS restriction endonucleases and corresponding vector sets allows efficient and parallel assembly of large DNA circuits. Plasmids containing standard Level 0 parts can be assembled into circuits containing 1, 4, 16 or more genes by looping between the two vector sets. The vectors also contain modular sites for hybrid assembly using sequence overlap methods. Loop assembly provides a simple generalised solution for DNA construction with standardised parts. The cloning system is provided under an OpenMTA license for unrestricted sharing and open access. A preprint has been published: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/01/15/247593 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The method is being developed for automation of DNA Assembly at the Earlham Institute and for building constructs for the OpenPlant Marchantia distribution, impacts are expected to increase during 2018 particularly following peer-reviewed publication. 
URL https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/01/15/247593
 
Title Loop Assembly 
Description High efficiency methods for DNA assembly are based on sequence overlap between fragments or Type IIS restriction endonuclease cleavage and ligation. These have enabled routine assembly of synthetic DNAs of increased size and complexity. However, these techniques require customisation, elaborate vector sets and serial manipulations for the different stages of assembly. We present Loop assembly, based on a recursive approach to DNA fabrication. Alternate use of two Type IIS restriction endonucleases and corresponding vector sets allows efficient and parallel assembly of large DNA circuits. Plasmids containing standard Level 0 parts can be assembled into circuits containing 1, 4, 16 or more genes by looping between the two vector sets. The vectors also contain modular sites for hybrid assembly using sequence overlap methods. Loop assembly provides a simple generalised solution for DNA construction with standardised parts. The cloning system is provided under an OpenMTA license for unrestricted sharing and open access. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact International distribution of the vector DNAs both directly from teh lab, and through Addgene. 
 
Title Marchantia toolbox 
Description Publcation of a collection of 33 open source protocols for culture, handling and genetic manipulation of Marchantia polymorpha, a new model system being developed and improved as part of the OpenPlant initiative. (https://www.protocols.io/workspaces/openplant-project) 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact There are currently around 50 researchers who have subscribed to the protocol-sharing group, and many more informal participants. We are seeing increased numbers of requests for reagents and advice, and interest in Marchantia as a simple model plant system increases. 
URL https://www.protocols.io/workspaces/openplant-project
 
Title Measurement of intrinsic properties of promoters 
Description Combined software and technical approach to reducing noise and providing accurate estimations of promoter properties in microbial systems, based on multi-parameter measurement and use of integrated models of cell proliferation and gene expression. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2014 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Being used to evaluate gene circuit components prior to assembly of elaborate circuits, e.g.: Grant PK, Dalchau N, Brown JR, Federici F, Rudge TJ, Yordanov B, Patange O, Phillips A, Haseloff J. Orthogonal intercellular signaling for programmed spatial behavior. Molecular Systems Biology 12:849-861, (2016). 
 
Title MoClo Toolkit for Chlamydomonas 
Description A kit of 119 standard DNA parts that can be used for Golden Gate (Modular Cloning, MoClo) cloning to prepare constructs for genetic modification of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. 
Type Of Material Biological samples 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The kit is freely available to the community (for a small distribution fee) and should enable much more rapid preparation of clones and then easy comparison between results from different groups 
 
Title Modular DNA tools for reprogramming Marchantia nuclear and chloroplast gene expression 
Description Deposited over 120 plasmid vectors at Addgene for distribution, under the OpenMTA, where possible. 
Type Of Material Biological samples 
Year Produced 2021 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Has facilitated use of Marchantia polymorpha as a new, simple plant model system, cemented the use of standard techniques for gene assembly in this system, and exchange of DNA parts and collaboration. 
URL https://www.addgene.org/Jim_Haseloff/
 
Title Molecular Diagnostics Toolkit 
Description Enzymes are the heart of each and every diagnostic test. Enzymes are the means we can track, study and defeat old and new infectious diseases. However, enzymes are globally distributed from centralized foundries and, most often, require a cold chain for stability restricting their access to the many, even more in times of supply chain disruptions like is happening in the current COVID-19 pandemic. The Molecular Diagnostics Toolkit includes: 1) IPTG inducible, T7 promoter driven ready-to-use expression cassettes to produce essential enzymes used in diagnostic among which RT, Bst-LF, RPA enzymes, RNA inhibitors. Enzymes are His-tagged and cassettes design are based on literature and experimental evidence 2) A set of constructs for the production of Sars-CoV-2 RNA positive and negative controls 
Type Of Material Biological samples 
Year Produced 2020 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The Molecular Diagnostics Toolkit has been distributed to > 40 researchers in >20 countries as of Feb 2021 and is being used for locally funded projects to manufacture enzyme for research and diagnostics in Chile, Peru, Argentina, Cameroon, Ethiopia and beyond. Impact will be tracked during 2021. 
URL https://stanford.freegenes.org/collections/open-genes/products/open-enzymes-diagnostic-collection#de...
 
Title Open Enzyme Collection 
Description The Open Enzyme Collection consists of 81 useful genes for enzymes that are "workhorses" of molecular biology, including DNA polymerases, RNA polymerases, DNA ligases, reverse transcriptases and restriction enzymes. The enzymes are useful in both basic and applied fields as diverse as genomics, diagnostics, biodiversity, synthetic biology, DNA origami, immunology, biochemistry and more. The foundational technologies enabled by this collection of include polymerase chain reaction (PCR), cloning, isothermal amplification, reverse transcription of RNA into DNA, and dNTP synthesis. Additionally, the Open Enzyme collection contains enzyme genes for fixing damaged and degraded DNA prior to amplification, enzymes for cutting protein sequences to remove unwanted parts, and DNA-binding proteins that can be fused with other enzymes to improve functionality. The collection is codon-optimised for expression in Escherichia coli bacteria and all enzymes are obtained from expired patents or for various reasons are not encumbered by patent rights. 
Type Of Material Biological samples 
Year Produced 2020 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The Open Enzyme Collection has been distributed to >70 labs in >30 countries, impacts are being tracked during 2021. 
URL https://stanford.freegenes.org/collections/open-genes/products/openenzyme#description
 
Title Open Reporters 
Description The Open Reporter Collection includes 42 commonly used reporter genes used in all kinds of biology labs for a variety of techniques including measuring gene expression, diagnostics, verifying successful transformations and more. The collection includes chromoproteins (which produce a colour that is visible to the naked eye), fluorescent proteins (that require excitation by a certain wavelength of light and emit another wavelength), luciferases (which emit bioluminscence) and other enzymes that enable colorimetric detection of a substrate by changing its color, for example horseradish peroxidase which classically turns a chemical substrate bright pink in very common antibody-based assays such as ELISA. 
Type Of Material Biological samples 
Year Produced 2020 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The Open Reporter collection has only recently been made publicly available and impact will be tracked during 2021. 
URL https://stanford.freegenes.org/collections/open-genes/products/open-reporter-collection#description
 
Title OpenMTA 
Description Introduction of a new MTA, the Open Material Transfer Agreement (OpenMTA), that relaxes restrictions on the redistribution and commercial use of biomaterials while maintaining aspects of standard MTAs that support widespread adoption (for example, incorporation into semiautomated administration systems). In developing the OpenMTA, our motivation was to realize a simple, standardized legal tool for sharing biological materials as broadly as possible without undue restrictions, while respecting the rights of creators and promoting safe practices and responsible research. Importantly, we wanted the tool to work within the practical realities of technology transfer and to be sufficiently flexible to accommodate the needs of many groups globally (for example, providing support for international transfers and compatibility with public and philanthropic funding policies). 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact We are seeing increasing adoption of this OpenMTA for public distribution of materials, now adopted by twenty academic reseach institutions, and a similar number of companies. Being adopted by Addgene as a major international partner. 
URL https://www.openplant.org/openmta/
 
Title Phytobricks 
Description Help to establish a common syntax for plant DNA parts, allowing rapid assembly of gene circuits via Type IIS restriction enzyme cloning. The Phytobrick standard (RFC-106) has been established in the iGEM community and widely propagated within the professional plant biology community. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2015 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Establishment of the first publicly distributed Phytobricks in the iGEM Synthetic Biology competition, and establishment of the Plant Track and Prize in 2016. 
URL https://www.openplant.org/dnaparts/
 
Title Speed breeding for crop breeding and model plant research 
Description To meet the challenge of feeding a growing population, breeders and scientists are continuously looking for ways to increase genetic gain in crop breeding. One way this can be achieved is through 'speed breeding' (SB), which shortens the breeding cycle and accelerates research studies through rapid generation advancement. The SB method can be carried out in a number of ways, one of which involves extending the duration of a plant's daily exposure to light (photoperiod) combined with early seed harvest in order to cycle quickly from seed to seed, thereby reducing the generation times for some long-day (LD) or day-neutral crops. We have developed glasshouse and growth chamber-based SB protocols with supporting data from experimentation with several crop species. These protocols describe the growing conditions, including soil media composition, lighting, temperature and spacing, which promote rapid growth of spring and winter bread wheat, durum wheat, barley, oat, various members of the Brassica family, chickpea, pea, grasspea, quinoa and the model grass Brachypodium distachyon. Points of flexibility within the protocols are highlighted, including how plant density can be increased to efficiently scale-up plant numbers for single seed descent (SSD) purposes. Conversely, instructions on how to perform SB on a small-scale by creating a benchtop SB growth cabinet that enables optimization of parameters at a low cost are provided. We also outline the procedure for harvesting and germinating premature wheat, barley and pea seed to reduce generation time. Finally, we provide troubleshooting suggestions to avoid potential pitfalls. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This methodology opens up opportunities to accelerate and revolutionise crop improvement programmes and the field of plant biology research more broadly. 
URL https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-017-0083-8
 
Title Transient plant expression technology for triterpene production at preparative scale 
Description We have develop a method for transient heterologous expression of biosynthetic enzymes in N. benthamiana for production of high-value triterpenes. Agro-infiltration is an efficient and simple means of achieving transient expression in N. benthamiana. The process involves infiltration of plant leaves with a suspension of Agrobacterium tumefaciens carrying the expression construct(s) of interest. Co-infiltration of an additional A. tumefaciens strain carrying an expression construct encoding an enzyme that boosts precursor supply significantly increases yields. After a period of five days, the infiltrated leaf material can be harvested and processed to extract and isolate the resulting triterpene product(s). This is a process that is linearly and reliably scalable, simply by increasing the number of plants used in the experiment. We have developed a protocol for rapid preparative-scale production of triterpenes utilizing this plant-based platform. The protocol utilizes an easily replicable vacuum infiltration apparatus, which allows the simultaneous infiltration of up to four plants, enabling batch-wise infiltration of hundreds of plants in a short period of time. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Generation of gram-scale quantities of 98% pure triterpenes and demonstration that we can rapidly carry out combinatorial expression of enzymes from our triterpene toolkit to generate known and new-to-nature compounds. This had attracted considerable interest from industry and led to four new projects directly funded by different companies in the pharma, ag, food and drink and home and personal care sectors. 
URL https://www.jove.com/video/58169/transient-expression-nicotiana-benthamiana-leaves-for-triterpene
 
Title pUAP1 plasmid vector 
Description We have constructed, a "clean" plasmid vector (pUAP1) suitable for cloning of Level zero DNA parts. Further, we have constructed two families of Loop plant transformation vectors, based on pCambia and pGreen backbones, respectively. These differ in replication origins and copy number in bacterial hosts. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact None 
URL https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/01/15/247593
 
Title Additional file 3: of Induction of targeted, heritable mutations in barley and Brassica oleracea using RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease 
Description Primers and probes used in this study. (XLSX 12 kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2015 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/dataset/Additional_file_3_of_Induction_of_targeted_heri...
 
Title Additional file 3: of Induction of targeted, heritable mutations in barley and Brassica oleracea using RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease 
Description Primers and probes used in this study. (XLSX 12 kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2015 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/dataset/Additional_file_3_of_Induction_of_targeted_heri...
 
Title Additional file 5: of Induction of targeted, heritable mutations in barley and Brassica oleracea using RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease 
Description Genbank files (.gb) of the 14 plasmids submitted to AddGene. (ZIP 41 kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2015 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/dataset/Additional_file_5_of_Induction_of_targeted_heri...
 
Title Additional file 5: of Induction of targeted, heritable mutations in barley and Brassica oleracea using RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease 
Description Genbank files (.gb) of the 14 plasmids submitted to AddGene. (ZIP 41 kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2015 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/dataset/Additional_file_5_of_Induction_of_targeted_heri...
 
Title Data from: Rapid transporter regulation prevents substrate flow traffic jams in boron transport 
Description Nutrient uptake by roots often involves substrate-dependent regulated nutrient transporters. For robust uptake, the system requires a regulatory circuit within cells and a collective, coordinated behaviour across the tissue. A paradigm for such systems is boron uptake, known for its directional transport and homeostasis, as boron is essential for plant growth but toxic at high concentrations. In Arabidopsis thaliana Boron up- take occurs via diffusion facilitators (NIPs) and exporters (BORs), each presenting distinct polarity. Intriguingly, although boron soil concentrations are homogenous and stable, both transporters manifest strikingly swift boron-dependent regulation. Through mathematical modelling, we demonstrate that slower regulation of these transporters leads to physiologically detrimental oscillatory behaviour. Cells become periodically exposed to potentially cytotoxic boron levels, and nutrient throughput to the xylem becomes hampered. We conclude that, while maintaining homeostasis, swift transporter regulation within a polarised tissue context is critical to prevent intrinsic traffic-jam like behaviour of nutrient flow. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.9pq6k
 
Title Marpodb.io 
Description DNA parts- centric database for the description of genome resources from Marchantia polymorpha - a synthetic biology database 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2016 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Marpodb is providing a framework for design and characterisation of synthetic gene parts in Marchantia (http://marpodb.io/query) 
URL http://marpodb.io
 
Title NMR Data files "Eudicot primary cell wall glucomannan is related in synthesis, structure, and function to xyloglucan" 
Description Zip files contain unprocessed data of solid-state NMR on Arabidopsis wild-type callus and mutant calli, irx9l xxt1 xxt2, csla2 xxt1 xxt2, which were described in the paper published in The Plant Cell. Each zip file contains a different experiment. Microsoft Word file describes the keys for each experiment. Zip file no. 10, 30, and 1000 contain the data of 2D CP-INADEQUATE of irx9l xxt1 xxt2, wild-type, and csla2 xxt1 xxt2, which detect immobile components in the samples. Zip file no. 20 contains 2D DP-INADEQUATE of irx9l xxt1 xxt2, which detects mobile components in the sample. See the main manuscript for more details on sample collection, data acquisition, and interpretation of the data. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2022 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/343842
 
Title Research data supporting "The biosynthesis, degradation, and function of cell wall ß-xylosylated xyloglucan mirrors that of arabinoxyloglucan" 
Description File "xyloglucan.zip" contains compressed NMR data and assignments in Analysis v2 project format. File "xyloglucan_NMR_data_Bruker_format.zip" contains compressed NMR data (raw, Bruker format). Sample details: xyloglucanase product extracted from transgenic cell wall material, dissolved in D2O. Experiment details: data were recorded at 298 K with a Bruker AVANCE III spectrometer operating at 800 MHz equipped with a TXI CryoProbe. Data processing details: Raw data were processed using the Azara suite of programs and chemical-shift assignment was performed using CCPN Analysis v2.4. List of experiments used for chemical-shift assignment and contained within the project (numbering as for the raw data directories): 1 - 1D 1H 2 - 2D NOESY (mixing time 200 ms) 3 - 2D TOCSY (mixing time 100 ms) 4 - 2D DQFCOSY 5 - 13C HSQC 6 - 2D 13C HSQC-TOCSY 7 - 2D H2BC 8 - 2D ROESY (mixing time 200 ms) Chemical shifts were measured relative to internal acetone (d(1H) = 2.225, d(13C) = 31.07 ppm). 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/357334
 
Title Research data supporting Cell size control driven by the circadian clock and environment in cyanobacteria 
Description This record contains data on birth and division times, as well as on birth and division lengths, of single cells of the cyanobacterium S. elongatus. Data for wild type and clock-null (deletion of kaiBC operon) cells are included. 3 environmental conditions (constant light, graded 12 h light : 12 h dark, and graded 16 h light : 8 h dark) were assayed. Data were obtained from time-lapse microscopy movies, which were acquired on an inverted Nikon Ti-E microscope. Acquired images were subsequently analysed in Matlab using the software Schnitzcells. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
 
Title S. elongatus circadian clock model 
Description Dr Bruno Martins and Dr James Locke (both UCam) developed S. elongatus constructs for examining the circadian clock and its outputs at the single cell level. This software model was published in Molecular Systems Biology and made available in Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML) format. Publication: Martins et al. (2016). Frequency doubling in the cyanobacterial circadian clock. Molecular Systems Biology 12(12):896. doi: 10.15252/msb.20167087. 
Type Of Material Computer model/algorithm 
Year Produced 2016 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact None 
URL http://msb.embopress.org/content/12/12/896
 
Description A world of virus structures 
Organisation University of Leeds
Department Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution This collaboration involved the plant-based production of virus-like particles (VLPs) by my group at JIC via transient expression. The future project will focus on the production of VLPs that do not have icosahedral symmetry - these will then be sent to the Astbury Centre, University of Leeds for structural characterization.
Collaborator Contribution The Astury Centre has state-of-the-art Cryo electron microscope facilities that enable near-atomic resolution strcture of viruses and VLPs. The collaboration enables us to solve the structures of viruses that are difficult or impossible to propagate and purify.
Impact There are numerous publications from this collaboration. These are listed under the appropriate award.
Start Year 2020
 
Description An improved bioproduction system for proteins and small molecules 
Organisation John Innes Centre
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Lead applicant on joint funding proposal
Collaborator Contribution Co-aplicants on joint funding proposal
Impact Funding Award BB/P010490/1
Start Year 2017
 
Description An improved bioproduction system for proteins and small molecules 
Organisation Leaf Expression Systems
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Lead applicant on joint funding proposal
Collaborator Contribution Co-aplicants on joint funding proposal
Impact Funding Award BB/P010490/1
Start Year 2017
 
Description Analysis of potatoes subjected to Cas9-mediated mutagenesis of SBE genes in potato 
Organisation Quadram Institute Bioscience
Department Food & Health Programme
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution We partnered with colleagues in the Quadram Institute Bioscience to conduct analyses of starch structure in potato tubers generated at JIC in which starch branching enzymes genes were mutated by introduction of the Cas9 gene and sgRNAs targetting both sets of SBE homoeoalleles.
Collaborator Contribution QIB used state-of-the-art HPLC-SEC and 1H-NMR tools to examine the chain-length distributions and the ratio of alpha 1,4 to alpha 1,6 linkages in starch from wild-type and mutated potatoes in this analysis
Impact Manuscript submitted for publication to a peer-reviewed journal. The work made use of biophysical techniques for analysis of polymer structure, synthetic biology, and plant biochemistry and molecular biology
Start Year 2018
 
Description Biomakespace Cambridge 
Organisation Biomakespace
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Prof Jim Haseloff and Alexandra Ting (OpenPlant Cambridge) develop and implement the Biomaker Challenge that funds interdisciplinary team-based projects at the intersection of biology, engineering, sensor technology, and low-cost instrumentation. Participants in the Biomaker Challenge are encouraged to use the Biomakespace (and allowed to use funding to pay for membership) as a resource and prototyping space for their projects, and to contribute to a community dedicated to open science in Cambridge.
Collaborator Contribution Founded by former Cambridge OpenPlant coordinator Jenny Molloy, Biomakespace is Cambridge's first community based, open access biology and prototyping space. Biomakespace provides members with affordable access to a well-equipped lab and prototyping space as well as to training and social events. The Biomakespace is a crucial resource for the development of the Biomaker initiative as it provides an open lab space, as well as training, for interdisciplinary teams that may not have access to one.
Impact During the 2018 summer challenge, two multidisciplinary Biomaker Challenge teams developed their projects at Biomakespace: 1. Microbial Bioreactor: an open source, benchtop, batch bioreactor to optimise yield of enzymes producing recombinant proteins for molecular biology such as Taq polymerase or for cell-free extract production. This will build on existing open source projects to further reduce the cost of components and pay particular attention to their global accessibility. By generating a modular design with thorough and useful documentation of different options to suit budget and accuracy requirements, the devices will be easier to build and maintain for a wider range of users in universities, companies and biomaker spaces: in particular those in resource-constrained contexts. Project documentation on Hackster (8,782 views) 2. Spectre: low-cost whole-cell biosensors for environmental and medical surveillance. The team has created a minimum viable product (MVP) for proof-of-concept purposes. By using a low-cost fluorometer, signal processing unit and 3D-printed imaging chambers, we can detect green fluorescent protein signal with appreciable gains. The measuring capability of our MVP is comparable to a high-end plate reader, which is traditionally used for a similar purpose but only under controlled laboratory environment. Project documentation on Hackster (228 views)
Start Year 2017
 
Description Cell-free expression of plant proteins 
Organisation National Institute of Biology
Country Slovenia 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution We optimised a method for cell-free expression of plant proteins.
Collaborator Contribution Partner received an ERASMUS training fellowship to visit our lab for 4 weeks. They subsequently transferred the new protocol and tools to their own lab. A publication resulting from this collaborative work has been submitted (February 2022).
Impact Scientific publication.
Start Year 2020
 
Description Collaboration with Cambridge Glycoscience 
Organisation Cambridge Glycoscience Ltd
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution We have jointly investigated the production of novel carbohydrates from plant cell walls.
Collaborator Contribution The company has attempted scale up of products
Impact We have obtained collaborative grant awards.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Cryo-EM of VLP structures 
Organisation University of Leeds
Department Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Production of VLPs in plants
Collaborator Contribution Cryo-EM analysis of the structure of plant-produced VLPs
Impact This is a multi-disciplinary collaboration using plant-based expression (JIC) to produce VLPs. The structure of these can be determined by near -atomic resolution cryo-EM (Leeds).
Start Year 2017
 
Description Developing resources for science activities in schools 
Organisation Interdisciplinary Research Centre
Country France 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Off the back of two OpenPlant Fund projects, a new collaboration has been formed to exchange knowledge, resources and tools for integrating multidisciplinary activities, learning and research projects into schools. The collaboration is with both the Open Science School (http://openscienceschool.org/) and the EU-funded project, doing it together science (DITOs; http://togetherscience.eu/) both based at the Centre Recherches Interdisciplinaire (CRI) in Paris. We have exchanged expertise and ideas to support their projects and once ready will share tools and resources developed by OpenPlant, for use in France and beyond.
Collaborator Contribution The DITOs project have contributed a number of practicals for use in UK schools, and their learning from developing and testing these together with teachers.
Impact A visit to paris to present on OpenPlant projects in outreach and engagement. A plan for an extension of one of the DITOs practicals. The nature of the collaboration is to develop multidisciplinary teaching resources in the context of synthetic biology. To date, disciplines include biology, design, chemistry, maths, electronics, and information technology.
Start Year 2016
 
Description ENGINEERING SMALL RNA-BASED GENE REGULATION PATHWAYS IN THE PRIMITIVE PLANT Marchantia polymorpha 
Organisation University of Veracruz
Country Mexico 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution We have helped to construct a series of knock-out mutants of Marchantia polymorpha for genes expected to interfere in small RNA metabolism
Collaborator Contribution Mario Arteaga's group is characterising the above mutants. We expect to produce modified plants that have dual use for studying natural RNA metabolism and plant chassis that will have application for transgenic work in synthetic biology.
Impact Scientific reagents, protocols and plant lines
Start Year 2015
 
Description Engineering plant responses to environmental nitrogen 
Organisation University of California, Davis
Department UC Davis Genome Cente
Country United States 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Contributed expertise in genome engineering, synthetic biology and regulatory networks in plants. Contributed to joint grant proposals.
Collaborator Contribution Contributed expertise on systems biology, root growth and plant nitrogen responses. Contributed to joint grant proposals.
Impact Collaborative grant funded: "18 BTT EAGER - Engineering complex traits using targeted, multiplexed genetic and epigenetic mutagenesis" Collaborative manuscript submitted: Bian et al doi: 10.1101/2023.07.17.549299v2
Start Year 2018
 
Description Engineering triterpene production 
Organisation John Innes Centre
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Expertise and methods in genome editing and pathway enginering.
Collaborator Contribution Expertise in the detection of triterpenoids.
Impact Collaborative grants funded: "21EBTA specialised metabolism and new cellular architectures in plants" + "EBioAct: Environmentally sustainable production of bioactive triterpenes"
Start Year 2020
 
Description Genetic determinants of transcriptional stochasticity 
Organisation Biochemistry and Plant Molecular Physiology
Country France 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Collaborative experiments to investigate the role of transcription-factor-DNA interactions in stochastic gene expression
Collaborator Contribution Collaborative experiments to investigate the role of transcription-factor-DNA interactions in stochastic gene expression
Impact Ongoing
Start Year 2021
 
Description Investigating carbon flux between lignin and chlorogenic acid biosynthetic pathways 
Organisation State University of Campinas
Country Brazil 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Supervision of visiting FAPESP graduate fellow
Collaborator Contribution Sponsor of FAPESP graduate fellow
Impact Sucessful FAPESP graduate fellowship for Nathalia Volpi, who spent six months in the UK progressing this project. Co-publications.
Start Year 2016
 
Description Mint Genome Project 
Organisation Michigan State University
Country United States 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution We are collaborating with the Mint genome project group which includes Robin Buell, Doug and Pam Soltis and Natalia Dudareva. Post-doc Benjy Lichman has discovered and s developing new enzymatic tools from the sequence data generated in this collaboration. http://mints.plantbiology.msu.edu
Collaborator Contribution We are collaborating with the Mint genome project group which includes Robin Buell, Doug and Pam Soltis and Natalia Dudareva. Post-doc Benjy Lichman has discovered and s developing new enzymatic tools from the sequence data generated in this collaboration. http://mints.plantbiology.msu.edu
Impact Two manuscripts are currently submitted.
Start Year 2015
 
Description Plant lines with selectable insertion sites 
Organisation University of Essex
Department University of Essex EssexLab
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Production of DNA constructs and experiment design
Collaborator Contribution Production of plant lines
Impact Production of reserach materials. Other outputs are in progress.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Promoting algae for industrial biotechnology 
Organisation Rothamsted Research
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution I have been very active in promoting the idea of using algae as industrial biotechnology (IB) hosts. This has led to a successful BBSRC sLoLa award, and also contributed to the debate about how to cement the rather fragmented algal expertise in the UK. Ultimately the introduction of the BBSRC networks in IB (NIBBs) were borne out of this debate, and these include Phyconet, which is specifically algal biotechnology. In addition several other NIBBs consider using algae as source of novel products, pathways, genes (NPRONet, HVCfP), or as platforms for community based metabolism (ADNET)
Collaborator Contribution Research and development collaborations with colleagues in the algal biotechnology field, but also in metabolic engineering and SMEs in algal biotechnology
Impact sLoLa Several BBSRC NIBBs, with Phyconet as specific one on algal biotechnology IB Catalyst award
Start Year 2009
 
Description Promoting algae for industrial biotechnology 
Organisation University College London
Department Division of Biosciences
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution I have been very active in promoting the idea of using algae as industrial biotechnology (IB) hosts. This has led to a successful BBSRC sLoLa award, and also contributed to the debate about how to cement the rather fragmented algal expertise in the UK. Ultimately the introduction of the BBSRC networks in IB (NIBBs) were borne out of this debate, and these include Phyconet, which is specifically algal biotechnology. In addition several other NIBBs consider using algae as source of novel products, pathways, genes (NPRONet, HVCfP), or as platforms for community based metabolism (ADNET)
Collaborator Contribution Research and development collaborations with colleagues in the algal biotechnology field, but also in metabolic engineering and SMEs in algal biotechnology
Impact sLoLa Several BBSRC NIBBs, with Phyconet as specific one on algal biotechnology IB Catalyst award
Start Year 2009
 
Description Promoting algae for industrial biotechnology 
Organisation University of Aberdeen
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution I have been very active in promoting the idea of using algae as industrial biotechnology (IB) hosts. This has led to a successful BBSRC sLoLa award, and also contributed to the debate about how to cement the rather fragmented algal expertise in the UK. Ultimately the introduction of the BBSRC networks in IB (NIBBs) were borne out of this debate, and these include Phyconet, which is specifically algal biotechnology. In addition several other NIBBs consider using algae as source of novel products, pathways, genes (NPRONet, HVCfP), or as platforms for community based metabolism (ADNET)
Collaborator Contribution Research and development collaborations with colleagues in the algal biotechnology field, but also in metabolic engineering and SMEs in algal biotechnology
Impact sLoLa Several BBSRC NIBBs, with Phyconet as specific one on algal biotechnology IB Catalyst award
Start Year 2009
 
Description Sugar nucleotides 
Organisation Keele University
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Enzymatic synthsesis
Collaborator Contribution Chemical synthesis - methods development and target synthesis.
Impact New integrated chemical and enzymatic methods for sugar nucleotide synthesis
Start Year 2020
 
Description Sustainable Bioproduction of Pheromones for Insect Pest Control in Agriculture 
Organisation National Institute of Biology
Country Slovenia 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Co-applicant on funding application
Collaborator Contribution Co-applicant on funding application
Impact Sucessful funding application (ERA-CoBioTech).
Start Year 2017
 
Description Sustainable Bioproduction of Pheromones for Insect Pest Control in Agriculture 
Organisation Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)
Department Institute for Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology
Country European Union (EU) 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Co-applicant on funding application
Collaborator Contribution Co-applicant on funding application
Impact Sucessful funding application (ERA-CoBioTech).
Start Year 2017
 
Description Sustainable Bioproduction of Pheromones for Insect Pest Control in Agriculture 
Organisation Technical University of Darmstadt
Country Germany 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Co-applicant on funding application
Collaborator Contribution Co-applicant on funding application
Impact Sucessful funding application (ERA-CoBioTech).
Start Year 2017
 
Description Towards machine learning-driven prediction of the product chemical space of oxidosqualene cyclases 
Organisation Alan Turing Institute
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution The PDRA on this grant is based in my group, carrying out computational work on oxidsqualene cyclase product prediction. He is co-supervised by Brooks Paige of the Alan Turing Institute.
Collaborator Contribution Dr Paige brings critical expertise in machine learning to the project.
Impact This is a multidisciplinary project involving computational and experimental work.
Start Year 2020
 
Title Metabolic engineering 
Description The invention relates generally to materials and methods for biosynthesising quillaic acid in a host by expressing heterologous nucleotide sequences in the host each of which encodes a polypeptide which in combination have said QA biosynthesis activity. Example polypeptides include (i) a Beta-amyrin synthase; (ii) an enzyme capable of oxidising Beta-amyrin or an oxidised derivative thereof at the C-28 position to a carboxylic acid; (iii) an enzyme capable of oxidising Beta-amyrin or an oxidised derivative thereof at the C-16a position to an alcohol; and (iv) an enzyme capable of oxidising Beta-amyrin or an oxidised derivative thereof at the C-23 position to an aldehyde. Preferred nucleotide sequences are obtained from, or derived from, Q. saponaria. 
IP Reference WO2019122259 
Protection Patent application published
Year Protection Granted 2019
Licensed Commercial In Confidence
Impact This patent has been pivotal to the development of a large collaboration with a major pharma company.
 
Title CellModeller 
Description High performance software tool for modelling cellular behaviour in large populations, that provides a physico-genetic model. 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2010 
Open Source License? Yes  
Impact Cell modeller allows precise description of fractal-like cell buckling and cohort behaviour in biofilms: Rudge TJ, Steiner PJ, Kan A and Haseloff J. Cell shape-driven instability generates self-organised, fractal patterning of cell layers. ACS Synthetic Biology, 2:705-714, (2013). Rudge TJ, Steiner PJ, Phillips A and Haseloff J. Computational modeling of synthetic microbial biofilms. ACS Synthetic Biology, 1:345-352, (2012). The software has also been used to model plant cell growth and dynamics: Dupuy, L., Mackenzie, J. and Haseloff, J. Coordination of plant cell division and expansion in a simple morphogenetic system. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 107:2711-6 (2010). 
URL http://haselofflab.github.io/CellModeller/
 
Title DNA Dave 
Description Dr Jenni Rant (SAW) and Dr Colette Matthewman (JIC) secured funding from the Biochemical Society to work with designer Molly Barratt to design and build a "Transcription-Translation machine" for education and publica engagement. The outcome was DNA Dave, an interactive robot to explain how proteins are made using instructions encoded in DNA. DNA Dave has been a great success with general public and school groups at the 2017 Cambridge Science Festival, the JIC 50th Anniversary open day, and Norwich Science Festival. Teachers are keen to take DNA Dave into the classroom, so we are now exploring possible routes to make the robot available to schools. 
Type Of Technology Physical Model/Kit 
Year Produced 2017 
Impact Teachers have commented that the description of the processes of DNA transcription and translation to make proteins is very difficult to put across in the classroom, but when DNA Dave was used to explain these processes, they could see the lightbulb moments in their pupils where they suddenly understood and engaged with the process. Subsequently we have had enquireys about loaning DNA Dave to schools. 
URL https://www.openplant.org/blog/2017/3/23/cambridge-science-festival-stand-20-improved-design
 
Title DocuBricks 
Description DocuBricks is an open source documentation tool for open hardware. The DocuBricks editor helps to easily create documentation that is modular and explained. The DocuBricks format is designed to enable modular sharing, better readability and community quality management. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact The platform is the preferred option for documenting hardware published in the new Journal of Open Hardware (Ubiquity Press) and has seven projects already documented. 
URL http://docubricks.com/
 
Title MarpoDB 
Description Software framework for an open registry of Marchantia polymorpha genetic parts 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact MarpoDB is a gene-centric database developed for genetic engineering and synthetic biology. This is the result of dealing with highly fragmented genomic data (from a non-sequenced organism, Marchantia polymorpha) and compiling it into an accessible resource for sequence exploration and retrieval. The database framework, however, can be used with any type of genetic data and can be set up locally. 
URL https://github.com/HaseloffLab/MarpoDB
 
Title One-click installation of JBEI ICE DNA registry 
Description A simple method for the one-click installation of a DNA database has been implemented. In collaboration with Nathan Hilson (JBEI), we have compiled a public OSX based version of the ICE DNA registry. The resulting IceApp is available and documented as an open source project on Github (https:// github.com/fathomlabs/IceApp) and provides a platform for compilation and distribution of the ICE in app form, for individual and local use as a one-click installation for the DNA database. 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact None 
URL https://github.com/fathomlabs/IceApp
 
Title Open Pi-Image: A low cost-open source plant growth imaging and analysis platform 
Description OpenPi is a near infrared image capture system based on a Raspberry Pi computer and PiNoir camera and custom 3D printed parts. This runs an extensible and modular open source software suite we developed called Open Pi Image that controls automated image capture and spawns image analysis. The Pi software can be accessed on any external system (e.g. a laptop) via a web server running on the Pi and the system can be embedded in inaccessible places. Open Pi Image is designed to incorporate new user provided scripts for analysis and can be easily extended and customised. 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2016 
Open Source License? Yes  
Impact Software is still in testing phase in a small number of labs 
URL https://github.com/TeamMacLean/install_opimage/blob/master/README.md
 
Title Open Source Autonomous Imaging Station 
Description An open source fluorescent imaging system that integrates low-cost and open-source hardware, software and genetic resources. The project was published in PLOS and was the Editor's Pick on the PLOS Open Source Toolkit Channel in Dec 2017. All hardware designs, software and protocols are openly licensed and shared. Publication: Nuñez, I., Matute, T., Herrera, R., Keymer, J., Marzullo, T., Rudge, T., & Federici, F. (2017). Low cost and open source multi-fluorescence imaging system for teaching and research in biology and bioengineering. PLOS One, 12(11), e0187163. Project Lead: Fernan Federici (UCam and PUC) 
Type Of Technology Systems, Materials & Instrumental Engineering 
Year Produced 2017 
Impact None 
URL http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0187163
 
Title Plant electro-mechanics hardware 
Description Project is developing an affordable, open source, hardware-software "sandbox" to allow plant scientists to explore the possibilities of in-vivo experimentation with plant electrophysiology. Built based on the existing Plant SpikerShield* system, which consists of electrodes (positioned on the plant by means of a 3d printed "manipulator") whose signal is amplified by a custom made electronic circuit which then is sent to a computer via an Arduino microcontroller. We have built a number of 3D manipulators prototypes for the positioning of electrophysiology probes, and the control boxes that allow controlling them via a cheap Playstation 2 controller. The micromanipulators plans are available on the project's github repository, which contains also all the schematics and software for building all the tools we developed (https://github.com/calugo/OpenPlant-Electrophysiology ). Intructions and more specific details about assembling the kits are or soon will available in the project's website (http://calugo.github.io/OpenPlant-Electrophysiology/ ). 
Type Of Technology Physical Model/Kit 
Year Produced 2017 
Impact The hardware and software is still undergoing development. It will be used by the researchers involved in this project and be made openly available for others wishing to use the product. 
URL http://calugo.github.io/OpenPlant-Electrophysiology/
 
Title Plant-ProChip 2.0 
Description Development of on-chip encapsulation and analysis of protoplasts isolated from the emergent plant model Marchantia polymorpha at processing rates of >100,000 protoplasts per hour. The technology demonstrated on-chip sorting of droplets containing YFP-expressing protoplasts from wild type cells using dielectrophoresis force and opens the door to droplet-based microfluidic analysis of plant cells for applications ranging from high-throughput characterisation of DNA parts to single-cell genomics. Publication: Yu, Z., Boehm, C. R., Hibberd, J. M., Abell, C., Haseloff, J., Burgess, S. J., & Reyna-Llorens, I. (2017). Droplet-based microfluidic analysis and screening of single plant cells. bioRxiv, 199992. 
Type Of Technology New/Improved Technique/Technology 
Year Produced 2017 
Impact None 
URL https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/10/08/199992
 
Title Synthetic gene expression system in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii 
Description A platform was developed by Dr Francisco Navarro and Dr Marielle Vigouroux that allows testing of the the expression of fluorescent reporters in different strain backgrounds. It includes the first Chlamydomonas-specific MoClo DNA parts following the common syntax for gene assembly in plant synthetic biology co-authored by many members of OpenPlant. Some of these parts are already being used by other researchers of the Plant Sciences department of the University of Cambridge, who have since contributed new parts to the repertoire available for Chlamydomonas research. 
Type Of Technology New/Improved Technique/Technology 
Year Produced 2017 
Impact None 
URL https://www.biomaker.org/projects/new-codon-optimization-tools
 
Title Whiskeroscope: rodent whisker inspired sensor for use in analysis of plant tissue structure 
Description Understanding mechanical properties of plant biomass is crucial for multiple industries, including building construction and production of lignocellulosic biofuels. Current methods to analyse mechanical properties of biomass are slow and provide little accuracy. The aim of the project was to develop a prototype of a novel type of mechanical sensor which addresses challenges outlined above. The device is inspired by rodent whiskers and relies on two inputs, obtained using thin steel rod, to quantify stiffness. During each measurement the primary, macromotion, dataset is obtained by analysing the extent to which the whisker bend during the contact with the material. Additional information is obtained by overlaying the macromotion data with the impact of the whisker contacting the material on its micro-oscillation. The instrument successfully discriminated between materials with unlike mechanical properties (steel and foam) and differently aged stem samples from willow. Whiskeroscope was also applied to study Arabidopsis thaliana stems with altered composition of secondary cell walls. The project and the background information on plant cell walls were demonstrated to the wider public as a part of the Open Plant's contribution to the Cambridge University Science Festival. 
Type Of Technology Detection Devices 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact No further use currently. 
URL https://github.com/Cyberius/Whiskeroscope
 
Title smFISH for imaging single RNA molecules at the cellular level in Arabidopsis thaliana tissues and the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha 
Description Improvements to current smFISH technology allowed researchers to image three, rather than two, RNA targets simultaneously and led to amplified signals which were compatible with confocal imaging. RNA could also be visualized in more differentiated root cells than previously possible, e.g. root hairs. LGC are now promoting the technique at conferences and have made Dr Susan Duncan an expert collaborator. Publications: Duncan, S., & Rosa, S. (2017). Gaining insight into plant gene transcription using smFISH. Transcription, 1-5. Project Lead: Susan Duncan (EI) 
Type Of Technology New/Improved Technique/Technology 
Year Produced 2017 
Impact Posters describing smFISH work were presented at the 2016 RNA Society conference in Kyoto and OpenPlant Forum in Norwich. Whilst in Japan, Susan gave invited smFISH seminars to plant scientists at Kobe University, the University of Tokyo and RIKEN Institute in Yokohama Following invitations, details of the existing method have now been submitted to the open platform Bio-Protocol (http://www.bio-protocol.org) and the smFISH probe manufacturers, LGC (http://www.biosearchtech.com). Once published online, these versions of the protocol will increase open access options for researchers wishing to find out more about this technology. In addition to extending the existing smFISH method to the Haseloff lab in Cambridge, ongoing support has been provided to other groups interested in this method - most notably to labs led by Prof. Anne Osbourn (JIC) and Prof. Fujiwara (University of Tokyo). In recognition of her ongoing efforts to promote plant smFISH, LGC has made Susan an expert collaborator. The company will present posters at both the Plant and Animal Genome Asia and Asia Plant Genomics and Gene Expression conferences to explicitly promote Susan's method. There are ongoing discussions for Susan to organise an LGC funded workshop that would enable researchers to visit Norwich and gain hands-on experience of smFISH and Susan presented her smFISH work at the Norwich Single Cell Symposium at the Earlham Instute in May. 
URL https://www.biomaker.org/projects/advancing-the-ability-to-image-single-rna-molecules-at-the-cellula...
 
Company Name Beneficial Bio Ltd 
Description Beneficial Bio provides affordable research products and services, including plastic consumables, PCR, gel electrophoresis, and DNA kits. 
Year Established 2019 
Impact Partnered with MboaLab Biotech in Cameroon to establish the country's first private sector biomanufacturing facility using synthetic biology techniques and open source tools. Employing four full time staff including two scientists. Six interns hosted from local universities, one of which has gone on to full time employment with the company and two have gone on to MSc or PhD programmes in Europe. Projected revenues of $250k+ in 2021 and further funding secured from Volkswagen Stiftung and Open Society Foundations.
Website http://beneficial.bio
 
Company Name Colorifix 
Description Colorifix develops new dyeing processes using synthetic biological techniques designed to decrease the textile industry's use of fresh water. 
Year Established 2016 
Impact The method developed by Colorifix is sustainable and can be made into a circular economy. Importantly, the production of pigments are mostly from engineered microbes that are produced using synthetic biology methods developed in the UK, supported by RCUK (BBSRC, EPSRC). These include DNA assembly methods, LOOP and BASIC. Importantly, the company also has engaged with DNA foundries in London and in Norwich (Earlham Institute). From an environmental standpoint, compared to conventional methods based on petrochemical dyes and dyeing: No hazardous chemicals (no taxes or fines for use/disposal) No extraction of pigment (80% cost of fermented products) 90% reduction of water use 30% reduction in energy use <1% dye waste (3x better than industry standard) Combines two processes: lower carbon footprint
Website http://www.colorifix.com
 
Company Name Iceni Glycoscience 
Description Iceni Glycoscience develops carbohydrate-based therapeutics and point-of-care diagnostics for infectious diseases using their own research in glycoscience, nanoparticle technology, and bioconjugation chemistry. 
Year Established 2014 
Impact Too early
Website http://www.icenidiagnostics.com
 
Company Name Leaf Expression Systems 
Description Leaf Expression Systems is a plant biotechnology company that offers contract research and product development services, specializing in plant-based expression and production of proteins for companies in the life sciences, food, agribiotech, and consumer care industries. 
Year Established 2014 
Impact As it is less than a year old, it is too soon for Leaf Systems to have had an impact yet.
Website http://www.leafexpressionsystems.co.uk
 
Company Name Persephone Bio Ltd 
Description  
Year Established 2014 
Impact Proprietary TomPro production system for making extracts from tomatoes without use of chemicals
 
Description "An edit for Good?" Popular Science article for lab News 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Article for the online magazine, Lab News: "Gene editing could allow incredible crop improvements, with the potential to reduce the harmful impact of agrochemicals on biodiversity while boosting yield. However, the recent European Court of Justice ruling that gene editing be regarded as the same as GM poses a huge barrier to farmers and hamstrings European science. So, should the UK embrace gene-edited crops post-EU?"
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL http://www.labnews.co.uk/article/2024846/an_edit_for_good
 
Description "Meet the Scientist" Event 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact During the Norwich Science Festival we organised a "meet the scientist" event where scientists who had won a space to have their images exhibited in a display were invited to come and give a 5 minute presentation next to their image about their work. This was a free ticketed event for a maximum of 50 people, all tickets went and the audience response was excellent with everyone staying behind after the presentations to chat to the scientists.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description 'Reach and Teach Science in Africa': Strengthening Agricultural Research Capacity to Tackle Food Insecurity in Africa 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact OpenPlant provided support to a Molecular Biology workshop in Africa: From 1-5 April 2019, early-career researchers from the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge organised a large-scale Molecular Biology Training & Open Labware Building Workshop in collaboration with the Laboratory of Genetics, Horticulture and Seed Science (GBioS) at the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin Republic. The purpose of the workshop was designed to provide core bio-scientific knowledge and laboratory skills to Africa-based agricultural researchers who would lead their own future research agenda. The event was a great success, received attention from media and policy makers and got lots of positive feedback. Plans for follow-on meetings were made.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.biomaker.org/projects/2020/01/29/reach-and-teach-science-in-africa
 
Description 2017 Youth STEMM Gold Awards 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Presentation on synthetic biology followed by a practical workshop on designing genetic circuits. Sudents then presented their ideas, asked technical questions and discussed the potential impacts of synthetic biology and biotechnology on society.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://ysawards.co.uk
 
Description 2022 CEPAMS Workshop on Traditional Chinese Medicine 9 - 10 January 2022 Virtually on Zoom Session 2: Natural Products and Quality of Traditional Chinese Medicine - 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Chaired by Evangelos Tatsis 08:55 - 09:15 16:55 - 17:15 Anne Osbourn (John Innes Centre) "Triterpene pathway discovery and engineering"
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description A Horizon Scan of Bioengineering Issues 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Jim Haseloff, Nicola Patron, Jenny Molloy, Benjamin Lichmann and Colette Matthewman from OpenPlant joined an international working group to participate in a 'horizon scanning' exercise organised by Bonnie Wintle from the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) in Cambridge. The aim of the exercise was to identify new and emerging issues in bioengineering and to gain a better understanding of current and future risks and opportunities in the field. A paper summarising and analysing the emerging issues has been written collaboratively between all working group members and submitted for publication.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description A visit to the Vavilov 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A short article in the International Society for Plant Molecular farming (ISPMF) newsletter describing a visit to the Vavilov Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia by George Lomonossoff and Ian Gibson , Jul 2017
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description AO attended Synthetic Biology Industrial Translation Showcase @Synbio_Showcase:Synbite Showcase Programme at the Royal Academy of Engineering 17.11.22 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact The aim of the 1-Day SynbiTECH Showcase was to reflect important issues and changes in the field of synthetic biology/engineering biology. As with the previous SynbiTECH meetings, the focus was primarily be on the development of the U.K.'s industrial and commercial synthetic biology/engineering biology sector. Consequently, the programme did not only reflect industrial and company development, but, also, important associated matters including strategy and policy, finance, policy and biosecurity.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL http://www.synbicite.com/news-events/2022/nov/17/synbicite-showcase-2022/
 
Description AS gave a seminar to Festival of Genomics & Biodata 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact AS gave a seminar to Festival of Genomics & Biodata entitled 'Using Synthetic Biology to Develop Algal Production Platforms for High Value Compounds'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.genomicseducation.hee.nhs.uk/events/festival-of-genomics-2021/
 
Description AS gave a talk at SymBLS21 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact AS gave a talk entitled 'Synthetic Biology Approaches to Developing Microalgal Production Platforms' at SymBLS21, a student-led research conference for postgraduates in Life Sciences at the University of Cambridge.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description AS gave a talk at the 2nd Biodesign Research Conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact AS gave a talk at the 2nd Biodesign Research Conference entitled Redesigning the Chlamydomonas chloroplast genome' to an audience from across biological and engineering disciplines, both academics and industrialists.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.biodesign-conference.com/2021/
 
Description Agritech East - outreach evening to algal innovation centre by those interested in and working in farming sector 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact This is the text from the Agritech East Report after the event:
Sainsbury Lab and Algal Innovation Centre - Cambridge University

At the end of January we hosted a Young Innovators' Forum (YIF) visit to the Sainsbury Lab and Algal Innovation Centre, Cambridge University. This was visit as part of YIF programme which aims to bring together early career entrants from across farming, science and technology at innovative agri-business and research facilities.

On the night we were joined by farmers, scientists, researchers and engineers who were all interested to find out about the work happening in the lab. The Sainsbury Lab is a world class research facility which opened in 2011. The group found out that the research which is carried out is exploring the regulatory systems which control growth and development in plants. We were able to get an insight into the labs as we walked through the building due to the open plan nature of the space. Unlike some research facilities, the Sainsbury Lab is unusual in having individuals from different research groups sat on the same benches, which encourages more conversation and collaboration across different research strands. We heard about the findings of some of the research and particularly enjoyed finding out about the most unusual discovery which was made totally by accident when a plant was found to produce minerals that were previously only believed to be found in asteroids!

We then moved onto the Algal Innovation Centre which sits within the Botanic Gardens. A purpose built facility, the AIC provides a secure environment to carry out research into the uses and behaviour of algae. Matt Davey, Senior Research Associate, talked us through some of the different work which has been carried out within the lab. This includes working with a local water company on growing algae on waste nitrate which can then be used to produce energy by putting it into an anaerobic digester. We learnt about other research linked to the health food sector due to the fact that Omega oils, which in the past have been extracted from fish, an actually be captured from the algae which produces it. Some of the work that Matt and his team have been carrying out is how to optimise growing conditions and nutrient supply, especially understanding how different algal strains survive in different climates. It was a surprise to learn that algal pigments can be found in everyday products such as Smarties and wine gums!

Finally, we were shown around the Plant Growth Facility. In this building there are lots of separate chambers in which all factors needed for plant growth can be controlled, such as humidity and light. This enables researchers to be able to drill down into the specific variables that might influence or affect a particular result. As we walked around the facility, we saw a range of plant species being tested on including wheat, potatoes and rice. These secure, air tight chambers also allow tests into plant pathogens to happen as they can be contained and assessed within a rigorous framework.

We were really lucky to be able to explore the Sainsbury Lab and Algal Innovation Centre. It was so interesting to hear about all the research that is going on which could impact the agricultural industry in the future.

As with all of our YIF events, attendees then had the opportunity to discuss the tours as well as talk about their experience and knowledge in the area. We chatted to some of the attendees to see what they got from attending the event, here is what they had to say:

Matt White, Engineer, Cambridge Consultants

The YIF visit was an excellent opportunity for industry members like ourselves to learn about the cutting-edge research being carried out in agricultural sectors. Having the opportunity to speak with leading researchers in algae growth and cultivation was fascinating and highly valuable for expanding our knowledge in this area! These events are great at increasing links between academia and industry to help us develop agricultural technology together more effectively.

Pamela Ribone, Researcher, Sainsbury Lab

The reason for attending the YIF visit was that I really wanted to try and apply what I have done so far with my research to a more applied science, and this was an incredible opportunity to know more about what is in between really basic science and the final application to a product. The Algal Innovation Centre looks like the kind of things I would like to go for the next step. From the visit I understood that they do laboratory research, but focusing on solving problems.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.agri-tech-e.co.uk/wp-content/plugins/civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=23903&qid=1491603
 
Description Agritech Sixth Former Course 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact In 2016 we ran a pilot course for sixth formers to give them an insight into careers in the Agritech sector. The students spent one day at the John Innes Centre learning about academic research into crops with lots of hands-on practical work and a second day at Easton & Otley agricultural college to learn how research is applied and the innovations in precision agriculture.
The course was funded by Robert Carter, Royal Norfolk Show president of 2015, who came to JIC to open the first day and also commissioned a video of the course. We presented the results to the Royal Norfolk Agricultural Association trustees and are currently fund raising to run another course this year for a larger number of students in collaboration with the University of East Anglia.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2tX0hct-CoZLUVWN0gzX1REeEU/view?pref=2&pli=1
 
Description AlgaeEurope 2015 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Presentation of research into algal synthetic biology to the principle conference in Europe aimed at supporting and developing the algal biotechnology sector. About half the participants were from industry (including large multisector, SMEs and startups)and 10% or so policy makers and officials eg from EU. The aim was to inform this group about the potential of synthetic biology in developing algal industrial biotechnology, providing the impetus to consider algae as production platforms for high value products as well as simply for biomass production. As a result, a consortium has been formed of academic colleagues who will share best practice and resources in SynBio.

I also described our recently opened Algal Innovation Centre (AIC), where it is possible to carry out pilot-scale algal cultivation, including of GM algae. As a result of the talk several contacts have been made with companies who are interested in the AIC.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Anne Osbourn - one of EDP 150 Norfolk Heroes of Science and Nature 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Published: 10:24 AM October 13, 2020 Updated: 7:06 PM November 22, 2020

Anne Osbourn. The professor of biology and director of the Norwich Research Park biotechnology alliance has been involved in discoveries to help agriculture and medicine and is also a writer and founder of an initiative linking science, art and writing. She and her scientist sister were both made OBEs last year.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.edp24.co.uk/lifestyle/edp-150-norfolk-heroes-of-science-and-nature-6407500
 
Description Anne Osbourn interviewedon the Stephen Bumfrey programme on BBC Radio Norfolk on 10 February 2022 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Anne Osbourn interviewed on the Stephen Bumfrey programme on BBC Radio Norfolk (from approximately 1:44:02) - 10 February 2022
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bj2cbr
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0bj2cbr
 
Description Anne Osbourn meeting with George Freeman MP during visit to Norwich Research Park 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Anne Osbourn met George Freeman MP (Minister of State in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) as one of the NRP Entrepreneurial Researchers.
Professor Anne Osbourn, Founder of Hothouse Therapeutics, spoke about Unlocking Nature's Inaccessible Chemistry.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description ArtCell Exhibition 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Scientific art exhibit with microscopy images from Jim Haseloff and Fernan Federici, opened by the Mayor of Cambridge and open to the public.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Article: 'Should we genetically edit the food we eat?' The Conversation. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Article co-written with an editor and social scientist and published at 'The Conversation'. This article is part of The Conversation's 'Head to Head' series, which feature academics from different disciplines chewing over current debates.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://theconversation.com/should-we-genetically-edit-the-food-we-eat-we-asked-two-experts-162959
 
Description Attendance of Synthetic Biology UK 2019 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The SBUK 2019 gave a broad overview of research in a number of areas of synthetic biology and facilitated discussions about strategies and future directions. Another event will be held in 2020.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.eventsforce.net/biochemsoc/frontend/reg/thome.csp?pageID=22575&eventID=52&traceRedir=2
 
Description BBC Radio 4 interview 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Interview about the potential impact of Synthetic Biology
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description BBSRC Exploring Innovation Workshop - Progress in intellectual property rights for plant science and crop breeding 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact OpenPlant Case Study was presented by Jenny Molloy "OpenPlant and a two-tier model for IP and open innovation".
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://members.niab.com/sites/default/files/civicrm/persist/contribute/files/IPR%20A4%20programme%2...
 
Description BBSRC NIBB IBCarb, Cambridge UK - September 2017 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Presented a talk at BBSRC NIBB IBCarb Event
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description BBSRC Taiwan partnering award meeting 23-24 March, 2015 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact BBSRC Taiwan partnering award meeting 23-24 March, 2015. I gave a 20 min presentation on metabolic pathway engineering in the Osbourn group.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description BBSRC virtual meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact AEO gave a presentation
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Bahir Dar Biomaker Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Biomaker Africa workshops were set up to get non-programmers up and running within a day or two. This is due to use of the no-code programming environment XOD, which can be used to introduce biologists to hands-on physical computing. This proves to be a great way of promoting co-creation in interdisciplinary teams - where both the engineers and the biologists can communicate properly! (https://www.hackster.io/jim-haseloff/biomaker-starter-kit-xod-023e8b). In addition, we've doubled down on the use of the 4D Systems touchscreens with XOD and the Biomaker Starter kits, to allow code-free communication between Arduino devices and the touchscreens, with their ViSi-Genie interfaces. We've built better tutorial materials to kick-start this (e.g. https://www.hackster.io/jim-haseloff/biomaker-tutorial-4-programming-the-4ds-touchscreen-3b2006). Details of the 2-day workshops and associated open resources can be found at https://www.biomaker.org
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.biomaker.org/visiting-workshops
 
Description Big Algae Open Experiment 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact The Big Open Algae Experiment team were funded by OpenPlant Fund to help enhance algal knowledge by performing the biggest parallel algae experiment in history. They are inviting universities and citizen scientists to participate in an open-source data collection experiment on outdoor microalgal growth. During the OpenPlant Fund project, low-cost bioreactors, the website and app were constructed (http://bigalgae.com/about). In this last two years we have been running the "Big Algae Experiment" and have interacted with school groups at Latitude Festival, the New Scientist Festival, Rugby School and through events in Cambridge. Big Algae was showcased at the CRI, Paris and at the Open Source Tech conference in Santiago, Chile. As part of UCL Engineering's programme of CPD activities for teachers, we have also organised sessions with STEM teachers to demonstrate the bioreactors and train them in how to run the experiments. The concept is being developed into an 'Algaegotchi' pet with the Iaac Advanced Architecture Group in Barcelona.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016,2017
 
Description Biochemistry Focus Webinar Series: Developments in Industrial Biotechnology 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Developments in Industrial Biotechnology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj3gNIInKA0&feature=emb_title
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj3gNIInKA0&feature=emb_title
 
Description Biodiversity Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact New SAW workshop delivered at Bignold Primary School on World Biodiversity Day to introduce year 4 children to the importance of biodiversity for people and the planet and to some of the factors that are causing species decline across the globe. The children were amazed by the wealth of species, their importance in the ecosystem and how humans utilise natural products and shocked by the driving forces to extinction, a term they believed to only apply in the past, linked to dinosaurs, and not something that was ongoing.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.sawtrust.org/in-schools/world-biodiversity-day-at-bignold-primary-school/
 
Description Bioengineering Horizon Scanning Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Several members of OpenPlant took part in a one day horizon scanning exercise organised by the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. This has resulted in a submitted publication and a follow up workshop is planned with a focus on biorisk and biosecurity.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Bioinformatics training in kenya 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact The OpenPlant Fund supported a bioinformatics training From 30th November to 5th December 2015 for 37 students from nine African countries. The course was held at ICIPE in Nairobi, Kenya and involved six days of theory and practical work, starting from the principles of Unix and programming, through to advanced scientific programming and visualisation. Towards the end of the week students worked on specific analysis methods in various areas of genetics and genomics, with a special focus session on synthetic biology delivered by Richard Smith-Unna. An ongoing student-led study group, coordinated online, will help the students keep the momentum from the course going and the course was also repeated with a new cohort in 2016. The course materials were made freely available online.
Dr Jelena Aleksic explained why such courses can have such an enormous impact in Africa "In an environment where all scientists above undergraduate level are expected to lecture regularly, the impact of advanced training courses quickly goes beyond the original participants. All our students hold Masters qualifications or above and work at African research institutions. We estimate that each of our course attendees will have the chance to pass on some of those skills to an additional 200 colleagues within the first year alone, and many more on an ongoing basis from there."
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Bioluminescence display 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Collaboration between Bernardo Pollak and Anton Kan (Haseloff lab, Cambridge) and Victoria Geany (Royal College of Arts) to create a bioluminescent dress design. This resulted in public displays as part of the eLuminate Festival in Cambridge, and Display at the RCA, London - followed by a photo essay in Wired UK magazine in January 2017
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016,2017
 
Description Biomaker Challenge 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact The Biomaker Challenge calls on interdisciplinary teams to (i) build low-cost sensors and instruments for biology or (ii) develop some biological resource or outreach project. Over a number of years, the initiative has funded over 175 projects and involved hundreds of participants from a wide range of backgrounds. It has proved a great opportunity to learn new skills, collaborate with an interdisciplinary community and, in a short amount of time, develop tools and resources that are useful for real-world applications. Tools and resources developed during the Biomaker Challenge are openly documented and made freely available.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017,2018,2019,2020
URL https://www.biomaker.org/projectindex
 
Description Biomaker Challenge and OpenPlant Fund Mixer - June 2017 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact This event, held in Cambridge, provided an opportunity for participants to discuss ideas for OpenPlant Fund proposals for innovative and interdisciplinary projects in plant synthetic biology or prototyping projects for the Biomaker Challenge. Several researchers traveled from Norwich to join the event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://www.openplant.org/events-calendar/2017/6/14/biomaker-challenge-and-openplant-fund-mixer
 
Description Biomaker Fayre 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Forty interdisciplinary teams exhibited their prototypes for the 2017 Biomaker Challenge at the Department of Engineering. Projects covered everything from spectrometers for measuring the colour of penguin guano, microfluidics for tissue culture, to ultrasonic systems for measuring plant height and 3D printed modular microscopes. Each group was given a £1000 grant and four months to turn their big ideas for open source and DIY research tools into reality and over 100 people came along to the final event.
The Challenge and Fayre aimed to show the value of open, low-cost and DIY technologies as convening points for interactions between biologists and engineers.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://www.synbio.cam.ac.uk/news/biomaker-fayre-showcases-40-open-source-low-cost-biological-instru...
 
Description Biomaker Fayre 2019 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The Biomarker Challenge is an annual competition that funds creative interdisciplinary projects at the interface of biology and engineering. Each of the 20(+) teams that took part this year, have been supported to produce low cost, open access resources and instruments, for biology. At the Biomaker Fayre, a whole array of innovative and creative projects returned to Cambridge to showcase their final products. Interesting discussions were held and ideas for follow-on activities were made.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.openplant.org/blog/2019/11/14/biomaker-fayre
 
Description Biomaker Training Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Series of Training Workshops for no-code programming and assembly of scientific instrumentation as documented at https://www.biomaker.org. Follow-on participation in open source projects.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023
URL https://www.biomaker.org
 
Description Biomaker hands-on workshop for bioinstrumentation at Stanford University 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Workshop run by Prof. Jim Haseloff at the Bioengineering Department at the University of Stanford - providing training in no-code data-flow programming for hardare control, sensors and display for instrumentation in biology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Biomaker.org website 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact We established this new website to host project information and outcomes from the OpenPlant Fund and Biomaker Challenge funding schemes. There are now over 100 projects documented on the website, and we have had around 4,000 independent visitors to the site.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.biomaker.org
 
Description Biotech Gamechangers: Introduction to Synthetic Biology 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Workshop for secondary school students, organised by Hethel Innovation. Hannah Griffiths contributed a talk, and ran an activity.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Blog post - 'Unlocking power of gene editing to protect the natural environment' 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Blog post - 'Unlocking power of gene editing to protect the natural environment'
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.earlham.ac.uk/newsroom/unlocking-power-gene-editing-protect-natural-environment-earlham-...
 
Description Blog post: New legislation granted to progress plant gene editing in UK 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Blog post: New legislation granted to progress plant gene editing in UK
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.earlham.ac.uk/newsroom/new-legislation-granted-progress-plant-gene-editing-uk
 
Description Botanical workshop for children 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact A botanical drawing workshop for 20 children was held at the John Innes Centre of 29 June 2015. This was led by a botanical artist from Kew Gardens who had been on many international plant hunting expeditions to document new species, who told stories about her travels. The JIC rare books collection was used to show the children historic collections and to highlight how plant natural products were discovered and documented. The children then made their own botanical drawings. They also learned about seed banks and the importance of maintaining biodiversity.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Built new image library for the Norwich Research Park 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact To help raise awareness of the high quality research carried out across the Norwich Research Park, we developed an open access image library to showcase images of NRP science accompanied by accessible legends suitable for a general audience. The image library has the potential to attract new traffic to the NRP institute websites and research group homepages and will allow groups such as the media, schools, the general public and other researchers to gain a glimpse of the great depth and diversity of research that is being carried out in Norwich. Although all the images are freely available to download and use, people are required to sign up to use the library and are asked to enter information at the time of download about their intended use of the image. This helps to capture who is using the library and where the images are being used. So far images have been downloaded 582 times and have been used in presentations, publications, on websites, for education and advertising. We ran an image competition to raise awareness across the NRP site and then assembled a judging panel to select the top 12 images which were used to create an NRP calendar for 2016. The calendar was sent to politicians, business leaders, industry and academics at institutions in the UK and internationally. The competition featured in the local paper, the Eastern Daily Press and an overall winner was picked and used to make a large canvas which is hanging in the new Centrum building. We have received many positive comments about the libraries ease of use for finding good quality, copyright free images to use in presentations from fellow researchers across the site. In October 2016 we put on a two-week, large scale image exhibition at the Forum in Norwich as part of the first Norwich Science Festival. The images attracted a lot of interest and several artists have been in touch with scientists whose research images were on display to set up new collaborations using science to inform artistic practice. We will post outcomes of these endeavours onto the image library website to widen our exposure to new audiences.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015,2016
URL http://images.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/
 
Description CDT-Sumitomo online workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact UK-Japan online workshop to discuss advanced research topics and possible translation to applications
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description CPSC PhD course: SYNthetic BIOlogy, From pro- to eukaryotic SYStems (SYNBIOSYS) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Delivered lectures and workshops as part of the University of Copenhagen's CPSC PhD course: SYNthetic BIOlogy, From pro- to eukaryotic SYStems (SYNBIOSYS)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://cpsc.ku.dk/calendar/2017/cpsc-phd-summer-course-2017-synbiosys/
 
Description Cafe Synthetique 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Café Synthetique is the monthly meetup for the Cambridge synthetic biology community with informal talks, discussion and pub snacks.
We meet monthly at the Panton Arms to share the latest developments in synthetic biology and related approaches and techniques. Speakers range from students and group leaders to industry professionals and entrepreneurs.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016,2017,2018,2019,2020
URL https://www.synbio.cam.ac.uk/events/cafe-synthetique/events/cafe-synthetique/past-cafe-synthetique
 
Description Cafe Synthetique Synthetic Biology Graduate Student Talks 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Cafe Synthetique is an informal monthly pub meeting for Synthetic Biology in Cambridge. In July 2017 it highlighted graduate student work in synthetic biology including algae, arsenic testing and automated labs. Algal synthetic biology featured heavily as Aleix Gorchs Rivera, Stefan Grossfurthner and Patrick Hickland from Prof Alison Smith's Lab, in the Department of Plant Sciences, presented different approaches to engineering algae to generate valuable products, such as pigments and medicinal compounds. Jan Lyczakowski (Department of Biochemistry) from Prof Paul Dupree's lab described his efforts to engineer the structure of the plant sugar xylan in order to extract more biofuel from woody biomass. Tess Skyrme represented the Sensors Centre for Doctoral Training (Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology), where 12 students have spent the summer designing and prototyping an arsenic biosensor. Clayton Rabideau (Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology) provided an introduction to the current state of the art in machine learning and automation in synthetic biology. Another event will be run in 2018 following popular demand and one of the speakers went on to curate their own Cafe Synthetique meetings, giving valuable networking opportunities and organisational experience.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Cafe Synthetique: Towards Engineering Circadian Rhythms 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Pub meeting in Cambridge with talks to 25 people by OpenPlant PDRA Lukas Muller (Department of Plant Sciences) on "Approaches to investigate the circadian system in Marchantia" and John O'Neill (MRC-LMB) on "Circadian Rhythms - Everything you always wanted to know about jet lag (but were too tired to ask)". There was excellent discussion after the event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Cambridge Biomakespace 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Set up a community bio lab in the ex-MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology building in Cambridge
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016,2017
URL https://biomake.space
 
Description Cambridge Crash Course in Synthetic Biology 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Annual 2-week interdisciplinary course in Synthetic Biology for professionals and students.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2009,2010,2011,2012
 
Description Cambridge Science Festival 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Designed and ran interactive activities at the Cambridge Science Festival to show what synthetic biology is and how we can apply this to plants to use either
to gain deeper understanding about biological processes or to design new applications of benefit to society. The stand invited people to play games that generated different ideas for using synthetic biology in plants which created a great starting point for discussions around responsible innovation. Our stand won an award from the Cambridge BID (Business Improvement District) Awards following some 'mystery shoppers' evaluating stands across the Cambridge Science Festival.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.sciencefestival.cam.ac.uk/2016-event-recordings
 
Description Cambridge Science Festival, Cambridge UK - March 2017 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Particiapated in the Cambridge Science Festical at the Department of Chemistry.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Cambridge SynBio Forums 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The SynBio Forums are sponsored by the University of Cambridge Synthetic Biology Interdisciplinary Research Centre, and feature prominent international speakers and excellent networking opportunities - they provide excellent opportunities to learn more about cutting edge synthetic biology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015,2016,2017,2018,2019,2020
URL https://www.synbio.cam.ac.uk/events/forum
 
Description Cambridge-JIC iGEM Team (iGEM Giant Jamboree) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact OpenPlant sponsored the Cambridge-JIC iGEM 2015 team. The team recruited 10 undergraduate students from across disciplines to the new iGEM Hardware Track, focusing on software-controlled electronic, optical, mechanical and chemical interfaces with biological systems.

The team chose to build an ultra low-cost 3D-printed motorised web-streaming autofocus microscope for synthetic biologists,. This allows researchers to tailor the microscope to their needs - allowing imaging on any lab-bench, in the incubator, fume-hood or the field using remote access and battery power, or use many OpenScopes for parallel rapid preliminary screening. The microscope offers fluorescence imaging for schools and laboratories with small budgets, based on low-cost (£200 in its most expensive set-up) and easily sourced components.

In addition to developing hardware and software for OpenScope, the team authored a guide on open hardware licensing for other iGEM teams and open teaching materials for use with high school students and undergraduates, including a 'Learning to Program with Arduino' pack. They visited the NRP-UEA team in Norwich and maintained useful contact with other teams in the UK and internationally during the competition.

OpenScope was awarded a gold medal at the iGEM Giant Jamboree in Boston, where >2500 people attended, many of whom saw the project and poster. They were nominated by the judging team for four awards:
? Best Hardware Project
? Best Software Tool, Undergrad
? Best Applied Design, Undergrad
? Best Poster, Undergrad

A working set-up of OpenScope and the software was demonstrated to huge interest from other teams and supervisors. A number of team supervisors mentioned that they were considering using OpenScope as an alternative to commercial microscopes in their teaching laboratories, both to reduce costs and as setting up the microscope would be an educational experience in itself.

OpenPlant and the Synthetic Biology SRI in Cambridge are providing a funding mechanism to follow up collaborations. The iGEM students have founded a Synthetic Biology Student Society and are continuing to develop OpenScope with support from the Cambridge SynBio Fund. There are plans to collaborate with Norwich students and potentially apply for further OpenPlant funding.

As part of broader engagement of OpenPlant with the iGEM competitions, a cross-track prize for plant projects has been established by a team including two OpenPlant PIs. The Cambridge-JIC 2016 team will again be supported by OpenPlant and will work with plant systems.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://2015.igem.org/Team:Cambridge-JIC
 
Description Canadian Mission to UK SynBio Centres 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Presentation of OpenPlant to a Canadian delegation of 10 participants from academia, industry, funding bodies and policy making organisations as part of their mission to to provide a better understanding of the global impact of the Synthetic Biology; to explore/enhance international collaborative opportunities (including research, funding and investment); strengthen collaborations with UK synthetic biology research centres; and to influence/inform Canadian policy makers.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Case study to be used as A-level resource for teachers 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Lomonossoff G. P., Thuenemann E., Bushell C."Plants as biofactories" - Case study to be published by Pearson in A-level text book
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk
 
Description Cell-Free workshop and presentation at Community Biotechnology Summit (MIT Media Lab) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Dr Jenny Molloy and Dr Fernan Federici presented the work of the OpenPlant Curriculum Development working group and ran an accompanying practical workshop at the Community Biotechnology Summit at MIT Media Lab in Oct 2017. This reached >200 people from community organisations, artists, researchers, makers, engineers, media professionals and more. There was positive follow up with several groups leading to new collaborations and an invitation to run the workshop at Genspace, New York which will take place in April 2018.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Cell-free Synthetic Biology workshops 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Recent technical advances in the preparation of microbial cell-free extracts have given rise to a new class of highly efficient systems for gene expression that are cheap to deploy and have huge potential benefit for the provision of a wide variety of diagnostics, sensors, vaccines and research materials. Cell-free synthetic biology is thus a topic of growing interest to many groups in Cambridge and the Synthetic Biology IRC is pleased to share its programme of activities to promote and support interdisciplinary work in this space.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017,2018,2019,2020
URL https://www.synbio.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/cell-free-synthetic-biology
 
Description Cereal engineering workshop: 3 min talk and participation to the debate on synthetic biology technics applied for cereal engineering. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Cereal engineering workshop: 3 min talk and participation to the debate on synthetic biology technics applied for cereal engineering. Held at MIT in Boston on the 8th and 9th of June 2015
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Co-lab OpenPlant 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact OpenPlant teamed up with the Open Science School at the Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire (CRI), Paris to deliver a series of three "Co-Lab" workshops where scientists, designers, artists and makers came together to learn from each other and design project proposals. Several of these projects were supported further to create prototypes at a big Making Weekend. A report on the workshop methods and outcomes has been produced and will be distributed. The project has fostered a longer term collaboration between organisers from the Open Science School, Cambridge University and the John Innes Centre who are working together to develop synthetic biology teaching tools and information.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://openscienceschool.org/
 
Description Collaboration on Floreana, musical composition 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Collaboration on Floreana with music composer Rosalind Page as part of The Origin Cycle, an avant garde music and media piece that celebrated Charles Darwin, and incorporated plant microscopy images related to collections made on the voyage of the Beagle. The piece was performed at the Harvard Natural History Museum, Boston, and Australian Museum, Sydney.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2009,2010
 
Description Conference presentation 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Invited talk entitled "Synthetic virus-like particles and how to make them in plants" at AIchE conference "Plant synthetic biology, bioengineering and biotechnology. This resulted in scientific discussions and promotion of the technology involved.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.aiche.org
 
Description Conference presentation by KC & PMM 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Posters presented at Synthetic Biology UK meeting describing our work in developing synthetic biology approaches in algae
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.biochemistry.org/events/synthetic-biology-uk-2022/
 
Description Conscious Consumers 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Working with the Food and Farming Discovery Trust, Youth STEMM Award and LEAF Education, we have produced a set of activity materials for teenagers on the topics of food miles, plant-based diets, personalised nutrition, animal welfare, rewilding and climate change. The resources are a mix of activities, videos from experts and links to case studies and further info for teenagers to access. The similarity between all the topics is that it challenges young people to question sources of information on topical issues on social media sites to enable them to filter information by its reliability and quality to make informed decisions as young adults. We are now working with the Norwich Institute for Sustainable Development on an additional set of resources focused on gene editing plants as this is another topic in the media that we want young people to be able to engage with and understand in a non-biased way. We trialed the resources with some teenagers and they all said that they learned a great deal and had an increased understanding of the topics. The resources are being promoted through the British Science Association and are currently hosted on the Countryside Classrooms website.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020,2021,2022
URL https://www.countrysideclassroom.org.uk/resources?search=conscious%20consumers
 
Description Creation and running of online training workshops for Biomaker 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact In response to the COVID lockdown Stephanie Norwood and I, as organisers of the Biomaker initiative, introduced more easily accessible hardware resources and created novel training materials for online teaching of no-code programming techniques for biologists lacking in formal programming skills. (https://www.biomaker.org/nocode-programming-for-biology-handbook). We have distributed around 200 hardware kits and run a series of online workshops via Zoom.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020,2021
URL https://www.biomaker.org
 
Description Creative Collaborations: Bringing Science and the Arts Together (Virtual event, Norwich Science Festival) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact https://norwichsciencefestival.co.uk/whats-on/creative-collaboration-bringing-science-and-arts-together
Creative Collaboration: Bringing Science and the Arts Together, 26 October 2020

https://youtu.be/OZ8qn4huj8Q

Q&A Led by Jenni Rant and Anne Osbourn
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://norwichsciencefestival.co.uk/whats-on/creative-collaboration-bringing-science-and-arts-toget...
 
Description Curriculum Hacks event 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Presented a large display on engagement activities developed and run by the SAW Trust for OpenPlant at a variety of events to share ideas with other people working in synthetic biology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description DITOs/OSS Leadership Programme 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Colette Matthewman presented on OpenPlant, the Synthetic Biology for Schools project and the SAW Trust to a group of french secondary school biotechnology teachers in Paris as part of the Doing it together science (DITOs) EU project and the Open Science School.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://togetherscience.eu/
 
Description DNA Dave Presentation at the Biomakers Fayre 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact We were awarded Biomaker and biochemical society funding to progress ideas for creating resources and designing a workshop for schools to build their own robot and presented our prototype teaching kit at the Biomakers Fayre in Cambridge in November 2020. We will be running pilot workshop for secondary schools in 2020 to test the resources and we will follow each schools progress as they work towards building their own biology-themed robots before hosting a sharing event for students to bring their robots along to present and to discuss their experiences during the process.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.sawtrust.org/news/dna-dave-at-the-biomakers-fayre/
 
Description DNA workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact We delivered a Science Art and Writing workshop on the theme of DNA at a local Junior school in a deprived area who were hosting a visiting group of Chinese children. Due to the language barriers, the local children paired up with a Chinese child to work through the activities together which meant they had to first understand the required process before helping their partner to complete tasks. This gave a new depth to the learning process which was reinforced by the local children having to take on the role of the instructor in their pair. This built confidence in the children.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description DSIT Lunchtime seminar 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Introduction to plant-based synthetic biology and engineering biology for policy developers at Dept of Science Innovation and Technology
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
 
Description Decoding and recoding Biological Systems 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The Norwich Research Park Industrial Biotech Alliance event "Decoding and recoding Biological Systems" was a one day symposium that involved several OpenPlant researchers from both Norwich and Cambridge. The aim of the workshop was to bring together scientists working across interdisciplinary interfaces spanning genomics, computational and synthetic biology and to provide a forum for enhanced interactions and collaborative research opportunities. Jim Haseloff, Nicola Patron and George Lomonossoff all gave scientific talks on their research. Anne Osbourn hosted the event and Colette Matthewman helped with the organisation and chaired the poster presentations.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.nrp.ac.uk/decoding-and-recoding-biological-systems/
 
Description Design as a host for growth: What are the new modes of cultivation for designing with life? 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Design with the Living aims to provide a space for critique and to drive an annual review of the agency of 'design with the living' in a global perspective. It is co-organised by the Design Museum, the Design & Living Systems Lab (Central Saint Martins UAL), The Bio ID Lab (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL) and the British Council. This event asked "Can designing with living systems be the change we need in the context of today's current environmental and ecological challenges?" In contrbuted to the panel "Design as a host for growth: What are the new modes of cultivation for designing with life?" to discuss design of tools and infrastructure to support living systems and the role of open-source frameworks for bio-design, including the outcomes of OpenPlant. >100 people attended the event which sparked an interesting panel discussion with architects and designers that influenced some of my thinking about my work.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://designmuseum.org/whats-on/talks-courses-and-workshops/design-with-the-living-2020
 
Description Development of an Open Source Autonomous Imaging Station for Distribution in High Schools, Universities, and Emerging DIY Scientific Communities 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact The advent of easy-to-use open source microcontrollers, off-the-shelf electronics and customizable manufacturing technologies has facilitated the development of inexpensive scientific devices and laboratory equipment. The team developed and published (Nuñez et al., 2017) an imaging system that integrates low-cost and open-source hardware, software and genetic resources. The multi-fluorescence imaging system consists of readily available 470 nm LEDs, a Raspberry Pi camera and a set of filters made with low cost acrylics. This device allows imaging in scales ranging from single colonies to entire plates. The team have used these resources in workshops in high schools, community spaces and cultural centres; and implemented advanced practicals to teach in vitro synbio, DNA fab and microbiology. The open source and low cost nature of the resources has allowed citizens to better understand the principles behind gene expression analysis and modelling.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description E. chromi museum displays 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact E. chromi at the Wellcome Trust, display of iGEM biological designs for human health and new biosensors, scientific collaborator with designers Daisy Ginsberg and James King. This was followed by displays at: Design Museum, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York, and a travelling exhibition in Australia and New Zealand.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010,2011,2012
URL http://www.echromi.com
 
Description EI Innovate: Linking datasets and bioscience 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact EI Innovate 2021: Linking datasets and bioscience
Through effectively linking datasets we can accelerate bioscience and deliver the key innovations needed to improve food security, environmental management, conservation, health and wellbeing.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.earlham.ac.uk/ei-innovate-2021-linking-datasets-and-bioscience#SpeakersandOrganisers-1
 
Description EI SAB meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Member EI SAB: Meeting held 4-5 November 2020
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description EPSO/FESPB Joint Congress 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact I was chair of the scientific advisory committee for this biennial meeting held in Copenhagen in 2018.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description ERA-SYNBIO/BBSRC OPENPLANT Summer School 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact A summer schools at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK designed to provide participants with 'An introduction to synthetic biology in plant systems' in conjunction with OpenPlant, a collaborative plant-focussed Synthetic Biology Research Centre linking the University of Cambridge, John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.13433/abstract
 
Description EU 2WAYS hands-on exhibit for Synthetic Biology 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Constructed a touch-screen based interface for computer modelled growth of flowers, as part of a collaboration with Christophe Godin, Montpellier. A simple interface allowed children to explore the genetic control of plant growth and explore different floral structures. The interactive exhibit was teamed with a display board of floral architecture.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2009,2010,2011
 
Description Early Years Conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Set up an exhibition stand at the Early Years conference to showcase SAW materials and in particular our Plant Growth and Development lesson plan developed for OpenPlant. We had a lot of interest from early years educators and we are now working with a local nursery school to trial some new plant-themed activities.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Edible East 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact We set up online workshops for scientists to discuss their work with artists interested in plants, health and the future of food security and climate change. The sessions led on to the artists creating installations for an art trail around the city utilising public spaces such as empty shops, churchyards and museums all inspired by the science stories. As well as the art trail, we put on a number of workshops for the public that provided new experiences in a range of activities from science, art, dance and horticulture with a central aim to spark discussions on our use of outdoor space for food growing as communities. The project was the start of a longer term aim to bring people together to make Norwich more food secure and to bring the latest scientific studies into everyday discussions.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022
URL https://edibleeast.org.uk/news/
 
Description Edinburgh Science Festival: Designer Life 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Panelist on public debate on Synthetic Biology, transmitted as part the "Material World" programme radio.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description Engagement Showcase 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This was an 'in-house' event where scientists were invited to put up displays of their engagement resources so that other scientists could come and get ideas, see what is available to share and to encourage more scientists to try public engagement. We took a selection of tried and tested outreach resources, including activities that help to explain genome mining, biosynthetic pathway building and biological engineering. We also took our DNA robot, 'DNA Dave' and his new companion 'RNA Ruth' that definitely seemed to encourage people to be bold and creative with their ideas for the tools they could make to help their research come to life for a general audience.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Engaging Images Competition 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact We ran an image competition for researchers across the Norwich Research Park to win a spot in an image exhibition at the Norwich Science Festival. Entrants were asked to upload high quality images of their work with accessible legends to the NRP Image Library Website. A mixed judging panel comprised of representatives from business, the media and the arts were brought together to judge the images and decide on the final 11 winning entries. The winning images were put on display in the Forum building in the centre of Norwich for 2 weeks and the images were also featured in print in a double-page spread in the Eastern Daily Press as well as on their website.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL http://images.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/
 
Description Enhancing Vitamin Content of Tomato Using Gene Editing 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Presentation of Case study on Gene Editing of Crops to members of the European Parliament
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description FABI awards 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Keynote talk by Anne Osbourn 26 November 2020
Osbourn A Key Note Address by Professor Anne Osbourn 17:30 PM Presentation of FABI Awards | 18:00 PM Director's Address | 18:30 PM
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Festival of Algae meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Poster presentation by PMM. Audience interested in approaches developed and potential for exploitation
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.algae-uk.org.uk/events/a-festival-of-algae-2/
 
Description Festival of Plants at Cambridge Botanic Garden on the 16th of May 2015 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Helped Jenni Rant to hold a stand describing the scientific research ongoing at JIC, at the Festival of Plants at Cambridge Botanic Garden on the 16th of May 2015
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/Botanic/Event.aspx?p=27&ix=597&pid=2718&prcid=0&ppid=2718&edit=n
 
Description Festival of Plants, Botanical Garden, Cambridge 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Exhibit at the Festival of Plants (was called Fascination of Plants in 2012) in Cambridge University Botanic Garden. It provided basic information about algae, showcased our scientific work, and then explained how we were using this in collaboration with companies to carry out remeidation of waste water. There were activities such as viewing microalgae with microscopes and observing algae phototaxis. Children could handcraft their own algae using pipe cleaners or take part in an interactive algae quiz to win prices. Several members of the public asked for additional information.

Interest from several visitors about how to incorporate algal growth in their activities, eg anaerobic digestion or green energy generally
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012,2013,2014,2015
URL http://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/Botanic/Event.aspx?p=27&ix=351&pid=2718&prcid=0&ppid=2718
 
Description Finding drugs in the garden: Harnessing plant metabolic diversity 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Conference Title:
Hope for the Future - RIKEN Symposium on Sustainable Resource Science - 28 May 2021
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.yokohama.riken.jp/topics/img/Symposium_Hope%20for%20the%20Future.pdf
 
Description Flash-talk. 2023 Non-seed plant meeting. Oxford University, UK. 12th December 2023 A minimal genetic framework of core cell-cycle genes in Marchantia provides new insight into its evolution in land plants by Dr Facundo Romani 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Scientific exchange
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Food Matters Live 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Eugenio Butelli gave a presentation entitled "synthetic biology to design novel healthy foods" at the Future Nutrition Seminar at Food Matters Live, November 2016, including presenting OpenPlant research from the Martin lab.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://www.foodmatterslive.com/
 
Description GAP Summit, Cambridge 2016 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact I was part of an expert panel designed to promote Leadership in Biotechnology. The meeting took place on 05/04/16 in Trinity College, Cambridge.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015,2016
URL http://www.cambridgeahead.co.uk/2016/02/gapsummit-2016/
 
Description GARNET-OPENPLANT CRISPR WORKSHOP 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact CRISPR technology is fast emerging as the breakthrough technology for precise genome editing in a range of experimental systems. In order to highlight the current developments and future potential for using this technology in plants, Nicola worked with Colette Matthewman (OpenPlant) and Geraint Parry and Ruth Bastow (GarNET) to organise a workshop including a day of seminars as well as a hands-on workshop on day 2.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://plantmethods.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13007-016-0104-z
 
Description GM presented a poster at the Synthetic Biology UK 2021 conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact GM presented a scientific poster entitled "Engineering 5'UTRs to enhance gene expression in a green alga" on the 22-23 of November in Nottingham, UK.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.eventsforce.net/biochemsoc/frontend/reg/thome.csp?pageID=53019&ef_sel_menu=703&eventID=1...
 
Description Gardeners Question Time Display 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The John Innes Centre hosted Gardeners Question time for BBC Radio 4 and as part of the event put up several displays for the audience to view before and after the recorded event. We put a display up about the Global Garden workshop we have been running to showcase the outputs and to raise awareness for future workshops.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Gatsby plant science summer school: engineering plants for farming and pharming 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact Presented a lecture and particilaped in a discussion session with undergraduates as part of the Gatsby Plant Science Summer School. The summer school is an opportunity for first year undergraduate students in the UK to discover the challenge and opportunities of studying plant science. 76% of students rated this particular talk as good or very good with some very positive comments such as, 'I realised how much I loved to learn about Synthetic aspect of biology after the talk by Dr Nicola Patron'. 69% of students atteneding the whole summer school responded that they were more interested in plant science as a result of attending and one third of students reported in their feedback that they are now thinking of doing a PhD with some plant science, an increase in 12% from when asked before attending. 93% of students reported that they are interested in or are considering a career in or with plant science as a result of attending.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL http://intobiology.org.uk/dr-nicola-patron-engineering-plants-for-farming-and-pharming/
 
Description Genetic resources in the age of the Nagoya Protocol and gene/genome synthesis 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Jim Haseloff, Jenny Molloy, Orr Yarkoni and Colette Matthewman participated in a one-day workshop, part-funded by an OpenPlant Fund award and organised by Dominic Berry and Deborah Scott from the Engineering Life project, University of Edinburgh. The aim of the workshop was to collect information on current developments, share views, highlight potential areas of concern, and establish grounds upon which to build better understanding of the interactions between and implications of the Nagoya Protocol and gene synthesis for collection, circulation, and use of genetic resources. A report will be prepared and published on this event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.stis.ed.ac.uk/engineeringlife
 
Description Genome Editing Reflection Afternoon 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Colette Matthewman supported a Genome Editing Reflection Afternoon at Norwich High School. There she talked about the work of OpenPlant, supported debate amongst the students on social and ethical questions related to genome editing in humans and participated in a panel discussion with student representatives of each discussion group. Here she reflected on the science process, ethical practices and regulations and commented on some existing research in this area.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description George's Marvelous Medicines 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact We took a workshop to the Latitude Festival for children to explore natural products from plants. We gathered a group of science undergraduate students to work with us as volunteers and spent three full days running 20 minute sessions for children visiting the Latitude Festival in July 2021. The students gained a great deal from the experience, growing in confidence over the time and I have since found that many of them are keen to get involved with more public engagement opportunities.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Global Collaborations Panel: Story of some DNA at Global Community Biosummit 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact The activity presented the global collaborations built around the open enzyme collection to an audience of >100 people and elicited many questions and >5 requests to obtain the collection or get involved in using it, particularly from Africa and Latin America.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.biosummit.org/
 
Description Global garden 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Following on from the pilot of the Global Garden workshop in 2017 we ran a public workshop as part of the Norwich Science Festival that invited anyone to explore plant natural products and the regulations and ethics around access and benefit sharing. We then ran another session for a group of scientists which provided an interesting contrast of opinions around ethics compared to those shared by members of the public. This is an ongoing project that seeks to raise awareness of these issues as well as to get people thinking and talking about the importance of plants. In 2019 we took the Global Garden workshop to Cambridge as part of the Festival of Ideas and ran the workshop at the Cambridge Botanic Gardens. We also had garden curator Dr Sam Brockington attend and give a presentation on the importance of plant collections for research as well as for enjoyment.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017,2018,2019
 
Description Great British Bioscience Festival 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact We were successful in a winning a BBSRC science communication award to develop a new science stand called 'Nature's Factories' to run at local events and as part of the BBSRC's Great British Bioscience Festival showcasing the best of British bioscience in its 20th anniversary year.
Human evolution is tightly linked to our use of plants for food, building materials, fuel, medicines etc., and we continue to look for innovative ways to use natural resources to provide us with sustainable solutions that support our lifestyles. Scientific research is enabling us to discover and develop new plant products that improve our lifestyles by creating better medicines, healthier foods and greener technologies whilst also demonstrating the importance of protecting plant species diversity and ecosystems.
The Nature's Factories stand was designed to enable the public to find out how science is exploring and exploiting the valuable variety of chemicals made by plants as well as making natural remedies to take away and pick leaves from our fact-tree.

We took the stand to the Science in Norwich Day at the Forum in Norwich (1st June 2014), to the Cambridge Botanic Gardens (19th August 2014) and on the 12th November 2014 used the stand for a training workshop for EU scientists to learn how to create interactive displays for public events. On 14-16 November 2014, our exhibit headed to Museum Gardens, Bethnal Green, London to be showcased at BBSRC's Great British Bioscience Festival. The festival, delivered in partnership with London Science Festival was open to the general public and free to attend.
Since then the exhibit has featured at the Bury St Edmunds family science festival (21st March 2015), the Fascination of Plants day at the John Innes Centre (14th May 2015), the Festival of Plants at Cambridge Botanic Gardens (16th May 2015) and at the Youth Stem Awards (13th January 2016). We plan to use the exhibit throughout 2016.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014,2015,2016
URL http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/engagement/exhibitions/gb-bioscience-festival/
 
Description HVB Management Board Meeting 17 November 2020 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact HVB Management Board meeting 17.11.21
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description HVCfP ABS/Nagoya workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Colette Matthewman gave a presentation on Synthetic Biology and the Nagoya Protocol at a 1-day workshop on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) and the Nagoya Protocol, run by the High Value Chemicals from Plants NIBB.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://hvcfp.net/events/sharing-natures-genetic-resources-implementing-the-nagoya-protocol-on-acces...
 
Description Hackster.io biomaker collection 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Design files for twenty six projects, mostly funded through the Biomaker Challenge scheme, have been documented on the hackster.io website. This website enables a user friendly documentation style for maker projects. A biomaker collection has been established to tie these projects together.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://www.hackster.io/biomaker/projects
 
Description High Value Chemicals from Plants- Harnessing the potential of synthetic biology for industrial biotechnology. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact High Value Chemicals from Plants- Harnessing the potential of synthetic biology for industrial biotechnology. 13-14 July 2015, Dunston Hall, Norwich. I delivered a 20min talk about the use of the HyperTrans system in goldengate vectors and its benefits for metabolic engineering.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description High Value Products from Plants conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Presentation of algal synthetic biology approaches to help support algal industrial biotechnology. This was at a Network in Industrial Biotechnology & Bioenergy (NIBB) meeting organised by the High Value Compounds from Plants NIBB. Interest was sparked amongst researchers to consider using algae, as well as plants, and production platforms.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description High-Value Biorenewables Meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact High Value Biorenewables Network Meeting
20-21 October 2020

https://www.highvaluebiorenewables.net/events/
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.highvaluebiorenewables.net/events/
 
Description Independent review of UKRI Roundtable discussion co-hosted by the Campaign for Science and Engineering & Sir David Grant 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Anne Osbourn was a member of an independent review of UKRI. Roundtable discussion. Co-hosted by the Campaign for Science and Engineering and Sir David Grant.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.ukri.org/news/ukri-welcomes-independent-review-report/
 
Description Inside Synthetic Biology 2015 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact A one-hour interactive workshop exploring synthetic biology as part of a three-day course for 17 gifted and talented pupils from years 11-13. Three activies explored standards in plant synthetic biology, gene circuits and natural product engineering using synthetic biology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description International education visit 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Hosted a group of teachers from Shanghai and took them to visit a range of science-themed SAW workshops running in local schools to
show how the academic research community can provide enrichment to the curriculum for children and opportunities for teachers to access
information and new activities based on current research straight from the lab. Also organised a sharing event for teachers and representatives
from the County Council to hear about how SAW is being embedded in Chinese schools and the impact it has on teaching and learning. All parties took
new ideas away from the experience to try and implement in their own settings.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Interview 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact https://fivebooks.com/best-books/science-2020-royal-society-book-prize-anne-osbourn/
The Best Science Books of 2020: The Royal Society Book Prize
recommended by Anne Osbourn
The Royal Society is the world's oldest independent scientific academy, dedicated to promoting excellence in science-and that includes an annual prize for the best popular science book. Here Professor Anne Osbourn, Fellow of the Royal Society and chair of this year's judging panel, talks us through the six books that made the 2020 shortlist-and what makes them intriguing, accessible and exciting.

Interview by Caspar Henderson
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Interview with iNews 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Interview with iNews Science and Environment correspondent. This resulted in the article: "Scientists welcome Government plans to lift ban on gene editing in agriculture" published March 16, 2021.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://inews.co.uk/news/science/scientists-welcome-government-plans-to-lift-ban-on-gene-editing-in-...
 
Description IntoBiology resource 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact A final year undergraduate student in Plant Sciences produced a webpage describing work on algae in Plant Sciences and Biochemistry. The webpage is part of the programme established by IntoBiology, aimed at encouraging school children to consider studying plant biology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://intobiology.org.uk/unlocking-the-potential-of-algae-how-the-green-stuff-in-your-pond-might-go...
 
Description Introducing Norwich Biomakers Network 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact At this event participants were introduced to the Norwich biomarkers: Norwich Biomakers brings together an interdisciplinary network of people from across NorwichCity and the Norwich Science Park that share an interest in the cross-over of biology with design, technology, engineering, electronics and software. This group meets monthly at a variety of local spaces for events including talks, training in the use of technologies and to work on projects.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Invited Speaker: Women in Biotech meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Our Women in Biotech continues in virtual format this September. Join us for an early evening event with networking and thought-provoking discussion.

We're thrilled to have three incredible speakers for you - Jane Osbourn OBE and Ann Osbourn OBE, chaired by Jo Pisani - discussing their career highlights, defining moments, and their approaches to managing disruption and resilience in uncertain times.

The BIA's Women in Biotech event series has been running for over 12 years and aims to connect, inspire, and support women across the sector.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.bioindustry.org/event-listing/women-in-biotech-september.html
 
Description Invited presentation at CRI, Paris 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Invited presentation: Open Tools for Engineering Biology
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Invited presentation at Stanford University 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Presentation at the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University on May 111, 2023
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Invited presentation at online Hitachi-sponsored workshop in Cambridge 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact UK-Japan online workshop to discuss advanced research projects and possible industrial translation.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Invited talk for Ginkgo Bioworks sponsored Grove seminar series 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Seminar to discuss plant-based synthetic biology approaches with a diverse audience
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Invited talk: Wageningen University, Netherlands. 12th April 2023. The liverwort body plan: from transcription factors to stem cells by Dr. Facundo Romani 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Invited talk for scientific exchange
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description John Innes Centre Open Day 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The John Innes Centre opened its doors to the public in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the centre's move to the current site. This included a host of interactive exhibits and activities to engage visitors with the science of the centre. The Osbourn and Lomonossoff labs teamed up to put on an exhibit about using plants as production systems. Visitors could infiltrate Nicotiana benthamiana plants (with water), design their own protein piece to be added to a growing virus like particle, extract a natural product from oat roots which glows under UV light, and learn about the science behind these activities.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://www.jic.ac.uk/news-and-events/blog-copy/2017/09/open-day/
 
Description Judge for the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the United Kingdom celebrate the past accomplishments and future potential of the UK's most innovative young faculty-rank (academic staff) scientists and engineers working in the three disciplinary categories of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences & Engineering, and Chemistry. The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the UK/Blavatnik Family Foundation and independently administered by the New York Academy of Sciences. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Judge for the 2022 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the United Kingdom (held in 2021)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description KEC Science Innovation Showcase 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Presentations to visitors from local/national/ international companies showcasing the research done at JIC.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description KG Talk at AlgaeEurope 2020 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Due to the covid-19 pandemic, the event was held online in 2020. Around 250 researchers, industry and business partner with interests in algae biotechnology joined the four-day event. We gave a talk presenting the research in the lab and attended a Q&A session afterwards. Discussions with ongoing partners (e.g. Algenuity) and new partners continued throughout the event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://algaeurope.org/participants-information/?utm_campaign=2911&utm_source=enormail&utm_medium=em...
 
Description KG presented a poster at the Metabolic Engineering 14 Conference, 2021 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Discussions about research results. Updating community on developments on synbio parts. Plans made for future related research activities
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://whova.com/web/biolo_202107/
 
Description KG presented a talk at the 10th International CeBiTec Research Conference: Prospects and challenges for the development of algal biotechnology 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact KG gave a presentation entitled "Synthetic biology for the controlled production of high-value compounds in Phaeodactylum tricornutum." The conference took place att the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Bielefeld University, Germany. Due to COVID restrictions the number of participants was restricted.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.cebitec.uni-bielefeld.de/events/conferences/575-algal-biotech-202
 
Description Keynote Speaker Future Food Festival Toowoomba Queensland Australia 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact I was a Keynote Speaker at the Future Food Festival Toowoomba Queensland Australia, giving 3 presentations to scientists, two to school kids and one grand discovery presentation at Queensland University of Technology to the general public
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Keynote presentation to AlgaEurope 2022 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact AGS gave a keynote address to AlgaEurope 2022, the major conference for the algal biotech sector in Europe
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://algaeurope.org/
 
Description Kumasi Biomaker Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Cambridge Biomaker organisers headed to Ghana to run a two-day workshop at Kumasi Hive, an entrepreneurship and innovation hub and one of the implementing arms of the Biomaker initiative. Twenty participants gathered in Kumasi for an accelerated course in programming hardware for low-cost, open-source bioinstrumentation. Half of the participants had worked with the Biomaker system before, and together with the new participants, further developed their projects by learning to program a customisable touchscreen interface for their existing hardware. The fast-paced, energetic training sessions were broken up by project presentations from the teams, talks from researchers from Cambridge and the nearby Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.biomaker.org/news/2019/8/29/biomaker-in-ghana-conversations-from-a-2-day-workshop-with-i...
 
Description Latitude Festival OpenPlant Exhibit, 14-17.07.16 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Latitude Festival

Led by Jenni Rant from the SAW Trust, Michael Stephenson, Colette Matthewman, Marc Jones and Dorota Jakubczyk (JIC) worked with Paolo Bombelli, Katrin Geisler (Cambridge University), Brenda Parker (UCL) and Marin Sawa (Imperial) to deliver a 3-day OpenPlant exhibit entitled "The Power of Plants" in the wildlife, weird science and adventure area at the Latitude Festival, Suffolk, from 14-17 July 2016. The exhibit showcased the potential applications of synthetic biology in plants in a hands-on and accessible way. The first day was dedicated to hosting organised school groups where children spent 40 minutes with us experimenting with a variety of plants to learn how scientists are using them in new and novel ways. The second and third day were run as a drop-in style to cater for family groups giving opportunities to engage with children and adults. Visitors were very interested to see science research straight from the labs and amazed by new innovations being developed through synthetic biology. The event was very tiring but the opportunity to work as a team with members from different institutes on a shared science theme was very enjoyable and rewarding whilst also expanding our understanding of each others work.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.latitudefestival.com/stage/wildlife-weird-science-adventure
 
Description Legume Project 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Working with LEAF Education we developed a plant science project for secondary schools to learn outside the classroom using mini trial plots in school playing fields. The theme of the project was looking at symbiotic relationships between legume plants and rhizobia to harness Nitrates from soils. Students explored if intercropping wheat plants with legumes would be beneficial compared to wheat growing on its own in the absence of applied nitrogen fertilizers. The project encourages use of scientific methods and enables students to consider the benefits of understanding symbiotic relations for growing food whilst also exploring the need to apply less polluting nutrients to soils and improve soil quality by fostering microbial relationships with plant roots. Learning outside the classroom brought benefits to students well being and exposure to 'real research' topics gave them insight into careers in plant science.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022
URL https://www.jic.ac.uk/blog/legume-learners-and-the-nitrogen-fix/
 
Description Live television interview with Australian Broadcasting Corporation 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Live television interview with 'The World', international news and current affairs show (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Received multiple enquiries and comments from academics and general public following broadcast.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-26/the-year-of-crispr:-scientists-celebrate-new/8213772
 
Description London Science Museum Lates: Engineering Natural Products, The Year of the Engineer 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact On the last Wednesday of every month, the London Science Museum opens its doors late into the evening to welcome adults to an engaging and free evening out, as part of the Science Museum Lates. Each evening is themed around a different science topic, attracts around 4,000 guests per night and offers a relaxed atmosphere where you can walk around with a drink in hand whilst talking science. OpenPlant participated in this event under the theme 'The year of the engineer' with a stand called 'Engineering Natural Products' to inform the general public about the activities of OpenPlant.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.openplant.org/blog/2018/11/16/late-night-biological-engineering-in-london
 
Description Ludham Primary School SAW workshop 2015 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact OpenPlant teamed up with the Science Art Writing Trust to run a workshop at Ludham Primary School for 34 pupils age 9-11 in which they explored DNA, genetics, mendelian genetics, trait inheritence, Marchantia as a model plant organism and Synthetic Biology through science practicals, writing and art. The poetry that the pupils created showed a very impressive understanding of the science covered. At the beginning of the day, most pupils said they did not consider science as an interesting career option, but by the end of the day most all of the class said they would like to be scientists.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.sawtrust.org/sawtrust/in-schools/openplant-saw-project-at-ludham-primary-school/
 
Description Mad Hatters Tea Party, Boomtown Festival 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact OpenPlant and the SAW Trust organized science, art and writing activities to excite young minds at the BoomTown Fair. BoomTown Fair attracts up to 60, 000 people and many of those came to visit our stand. The children were tasked with many exciting science-based activities.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.openplant.org/blog/2018/8/22/the-mad-hatters-tea-party-at-boomtown
 
Description Marvellous Medicines at Boomtown Festival Kidztown 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact OpenPlant and SAW teamed up this year to deliver a science tent for exploration of "Marvellous Medicines" in Kidztown at Boomtown festival (Aug 2017), which attracts over 50,000 people each year. This was the first time that the kids' area offered a science tent. The interactive exhibition included a natural products periodic table filled with different plants for extracting colours, scents, and citric acid. Kids could choose a selection of plants to make a potion from, which would change colour, fizz and give off a scent as the experiment progressed. Throughout, the children learned about a plant's ability to make different compounds that define their features such as colour, scent and taste. They extracted the colour pigment themselves and used other natural extracts to complete their potions, observing how we can use things that plants make for our own products. The older children also learned about pH and colour indicators, a classic chemistry practical they will no doubt carry out in secondary school. A further use for plants was discovered in the art stand: the plant materials could be used as 3D elements to decorate the potion bottles.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://www.openplant.org/blog/2017/9/14/boomtown-fair-august-2017
 
Description Meet the Poet - Heidi Williamson & Anne Osbourn 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Mon 4th Aug, 8PM (UK time) - via YouTube
Meet the Poet - Heidi Williamson & Anne Osbourn
Free poetry event hosted by Home Stage.

Featuring a selection of readings on ideas of place, belonging and science, plus interviews with the two poets and discussions on their work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dZQ6DVbAt4
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dZQ6DVbAt4
 
Description Meeting (Virtual) SynbiTECH2020: Food and the Environment - Working with the Natural World 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact 26-27 October 2020

Prof Anne Osbourn, Group Leader, John Innes Centre - CHAIR for Company Presentations: Food and the environment - working with the natural world

Pascoe Harvey, Senior Scientist, Biotangents
Annabelle Cox, CEO, Tensei
Chris Reynolds, Co-Founder and CTO, Better Dairy
Niall Dunne, CEO, Polymateria
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.synbitech.com/conference-programme
 
Description Meeting on Norwich Research Park 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Presentation "Transient expressions of synthetic biology in plants" at Earlham Institute, Norwich Research Park, Meeting "Decoding and Recoding Biological Systems", 19/05/17
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Metabolic Engineering: From Model Plants to Medicinal Plants OpenPlant Forum, Cambridge, UK 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Yang Zhang, Eugenio Butelli and Cathie Martin gave an oral presentation "Metabolic Engineering: From Model Plants to Medicinal Plants" on 29.07.2015 at the OpenPlant Forum, Cambridge, UK
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Molecular Biotechnology Laboratory Training Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The overall purpose of the workshop was to build capacity of early- and mid-African agricultural researchers and academics who can help advance innovative research and contribute to food security in Africa. This event was sponsored through an OpenPlant Fund grant, Nicola Patron presented, Susana Sauret-Gueto and Efty Frangedakis ran practical sessions.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.biomaker.org/projects/2017/7/2/plant-prochip-j4sb3-flzfp-kx5mc-jkg9j
 
Description Molecular Training Workshop for African Scientists, University of Cambridge 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Lectures deleivered as part of a two week training evint for agricultural research scientists, academics and PhD students from across Africa. This was followed by discussion and follow-up questions by email.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL http://www.jrbiotekfoundation.org/cambridge-lab-training-2018/
 
Description NRP DTP Summer Conference 2015 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact NRP DTP Summer Conference 2015 held in the assembly house in Norwich. 15 min talk: Pathway engineering using the GoldenGate MoClo system.

Norwich Research Park Doctoral Training Partnerships
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/
 
Description NRP-UEA 2015 iGEM Team (iGEM Giant Jamboree, Science in Norwich, Norwich Writers Centre Workshop) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact Instructed an undergraduate iGEM team that presented at the iGEM Giant Jamboree in Boston, MA. The team also interacted with various audiences at Science in Norwich public outreach event, a workshop for scientists and poets at the Norwich Writers Centre, and to large numbers of students at the iGEM Giant Jamboree. The team also collaborated with other teams in Spain and the Netherlands. The project took different approaches to increase butyrate levels in the colon to protect against colonic cancer and also interacted with Cancer charities to discuss preventative measures to combat cancer and the use of bioengineering to make healthy foods and medicines.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://2015.igem.org/Team:NRP-UEA-Norwich
 
Description NanoBioMater 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Lectured on "Plant viruses and virus-like particles as building blocks for bionanotechnology" at the NanoBioMater summer school, Bad Herrenalb, Germany, 22/06/15
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Nature News Technology Feature: How DIY technologies are democratizing science 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Open Enzyme Collection was featured in Nature News feature on "How DIY technologies are democratizing science" following an interview with Jenny Molloy. This led to further requests for information and invitations to contribute to other features e.g. comment on the future of biotechnology for Nature Biotechnology's 25th anniversary.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03193-5
 
Description Neo.Life - 25 Visions for the Future of our Species (Book) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Contributed a book section to Neo.Life - 25 Visions for the Future of our Species (Book). Editors: Jane Metcalf and Brian Bergstein
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://neo.life/visions/
 
Description New Phytoloigist Trustees meeting (virtual) 14:30 - 16:30, 19 November 2020 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact New Phytologist Trustees
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description New initiative uses science to inspire creative writing in Eastern Daily Press (edp24.co.uk) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact New initiative uses science to inspire creative writing in Eastern Daily Press (edp24.co.uk)

Writers and researchers have come together through an exciting new project to spread the word about the world-leading science
Norwich Research Park has teamed up with the National Centre for Writing (NCW), based in Norwich, to launch a project called 'Translating Science'. It aims to engage more people in science through creative writing that has been inspired by some of the research conducted by scientists working at the Park. Translating Science paired several established writers and poets with researchers at the various institutes based at Norwich Research Park.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/new-translating-science-project-at-norwich-research-park-8643544
 
Description No-code programming online workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Organised and delivered an online workshop to provide training for non-programmers in the use of microcontrollers for scientific applications. Distributed standard hardware for the training sessions ahead of the workshop. Dec 8th and 9th 2021.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.biomaker.org
 
Description No-code programming workshop, University of Veracruz, Mexico 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Online workshop, co-sponsored with Prof. Mario Arteaga, University of Veracruz, Mexico - introducing research students to no-code programming for scientific instrumentation.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.biomaker.org
 
Description Norwich Bio Makers 2017 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Involvement by GP Lomonossoff in Norwich Bio Makers "Building Nanostructures in Plants", St. Andrews Brew House, Norwich, UK 13 Dec 2017
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Norwich Biomaker Event: 3D Printing for Beginners 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Norwich Biomakers brings together an interdisciplinary network of people from across NorwichCity and the Norwich Science Park that share an interest in the cross-over of biology with design, technology, engineering, electronics and software. At this meetup, Brian Norman from the Norwich Hackspace gave a beginners introduction to 3D printing: including an explanation of some of the different types of printers, how to access and adapt files for printing from thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/), and how to use openly available software to create your own designs.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.meetup.com/Norwich-Biomakers/events/248890539/
 
Description Norwich Biomaker Event: Arduinos: Electronics from basics to projects 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Norwich Biomakers brings together an interdisciplinary network of people from across NorwichCity and the Norwich Science Park that share an interest in the cross-over of biology with design, technology, engineering, electronics and software. This biomakers meetup provided a beginners introduction and chance to explore projects based on Arduinos. Arduinos are small open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. During the session, time was spent on working in multi-disciplinary teams to come up with ideas, plans and designs of Biomaker projects that involve the use of arduinos.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://www.meetup.com/Norwich-Biomakers/events/244658016/
 
Description Norwich Biomaker Event: Artificial Intelligence in Life Sciences 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Norwich Biomakers brings together an interdisciplinary network of people from across NorwichCity and the Norwich Science Park that share an interest in the cross-over of biology with design, technology, engineering, electronics and software. At this meetup, Dr Ji Zhou from the Earlham Institute introduced his work in artificial intelligence and deep learning and it's uses in the life sciences, including projects such as in field monitoring of wheat growth and automated seed germination screening.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.meetup.com/Norwich-Biomakers/events/258268625/
 
Description Norwich Biomaker Event: Building Nanostructures in Plants 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Norwich Biomakers brings together an interdisciplinary network of people from across NorwichCity and the Norwich Science Park that share an interest in the cross-over of biology with design, technology, engineering, electronics and software. In this session, Professor George Lomonossoff from the John Innes Centre talked about his work using plants to produce virus-like particles - tiny non-infectious nanospheres - which can be used as effective vaccines, and potentially for a variety of other purposes. PhD student Roger Castells-Graells brought along a variety of models to explain how these nanostructures form.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://www.meetup.com/Norwich-Biomakers/events/244753486/
 
Description Norwich Biomaker Event: Building circuits with DNA 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Norwich Biomakers brings together an interdisciplinary network of people from across NorwichCity and the Norwich Science Park that share an interest in the cross-over of biology with design, technology, engineering, electronics and software. At this meetup, Nicola Patron (Earlham Institute) and Millie Stanton (John Innes Centre) talked about the relatively new scientific/engineering field of synthetic biology, and explained some of the basics of DNA.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.meetup.com/Norwich-Biomakers/events/251989408/
 
Description Norwich Biomaker Event: Discover the Power Beneath Your Feet 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Norwich Biomakers brings together an interdisciplinary network of people from across NorwichCity and the Norwich Science Park that share an interest in the cross-over of biology with design, technology, engineering, electronics and software. This Norwich Biomakers meetup included a short talk from Prof Julea Butt to introduce the 'rock-breathing bacteria' that act as biobatteries and consider how they can be harnessed as a sustainable source of power. Discussions were held on how different disciplines - such as design, engineering, electronics, computing, biology etc - feed into such a project, and what biomakers could contibute to the multifaceted challenge of generating energy using biological organisms.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://www.meetup.com/Norwich-Biomakers/events/243884032/
 
Description Norwich Biomaker Event: Explore Visual Programming with XOD 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Norwich Biomakers brings together an interdisciplinary network of people from across NorwichCity and the Norwich Science Park that share an interest in the cross-over of biology with design, technology, engineering, electronics and software. This meetup provided an opportunity for participants to discuss ideas for innovative and interdisciplinary projects in plant synthetic biology. The focus of this meetup was to build up resources in XOD for use when building low-cost sensors and instruments for biology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.meetup.com/Norwich-Biomakers/events/256838944/
 
Description Norwich Biomaker Event: How to generate electricity from plants 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Norwich Biomakers brings together an interdisciplinary network of people from across NorwichCity and the Norwich Science Park that share an interest in the cross-over of biology with design, technology, engineering, electronics and software. In this meetup, Dr Paolo Bombelli from the University of Cambridge talked about his work understanding plant and algae photosynthesis, and discussions were held on investigating ways for harnessing electricity directly from these plants.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.meetup.com/Norwich-Biomakers/events/247546753/
 
Description Norwich Biomaker Event: Light-powered bacteria as biofactories 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach