CENTRE FOR SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY OF FINE AND SPECIALITY CHEMICALS

Lead Research Organisation: University of Manchester
Department Name: Chemistry

Abstract

The SYNBIOCHEM Centre will be a UK and European Centre of Excellence for Synthetic Biology in relation to fine and speciality chemicals and production. It will provide a national focus that spearheads UK academic and industrial research to accelerate the application of synthetic biology in fine and speciality chemicals production and the generation of new state-of-the-art tools to facilitate this translation.

Synthetic biology is an emerging science that has the capacity to transform the UK and European industrial landscape in sustainable manufacturing processes across all industrial sectors. UK industries, from large multinationals to a large number of small and medium enterprises, are internationally well positioned to benefit from the multitude of novel technologies developed in synthetic biology laboratories. To accelerate the translation of synthetic biology towards the fine and speciality chemicals market, the Centre will unite technologies, tools and ideas that emerge from academic institutions throughout the country, harvest synergies across the industrial and scientific sectors, and address the novel ethical and regulatory challenges faced by a disruptive technology at the interface of life sciences, chemistry and engineering.

The Centre will be located in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, a unique cross-disciplinary research centre at the University of Manchester, bringing together more than 500 researchers with expertise in molecular biology, chemistry, engineering, material and computing science, and medicine at the forefront of international developments in synthetic biology. As part of the MIB, the Centre will build on a long and distinguished track record in spin-off formation and translating innovative research to industrial application, including a substantial portfolio of partnerships, e.g., with Syngenta, GSK, BASF and Shell.

The Centre will operate an open and inclusive approach driven by the unique industrial needs of synthetic biology. This will allow it to harness the scientific expertise of the synthetic biology community at Manchester and throughout the country, by facilitating multiple research projects positioned primarily at the Technology-Readiness Levels 1 to 3, but also including industry-driven academic-led proof-of-concept and proof-of-utility projects with partners from industry and academia at the higher Technology-Readiness Levels.

The Centre will develop major programs in the ethical and regulatory aspects faced by synthetic biology. By initiating early dialogue on responsible innovation, providing expertise, guidance and training in responsible governance of synthetic biology innovation, and promoting public engagement and training for the research community, the Centre will create the conditions for accelerated exploitation of the opportunities generated by the rapid advances in synthetic biology for the benefit of the UK economy. Colleagues at the Manchester Institute of Science Ethics and Innovation will be central to this effort to mitigate technology risks (real or perceived) associated with this new industrial revolution, while the University of Manchester Business School will develop the responsible innovation and market analysis strategies required to realize emerging opportunities as science progresses. This will be supported by analysis and stimulation of collaborative developments in this multi-disciplinary/multi-sector field.

The Centre will respond continuously and flexibly to developing needs from industry partners new scientific trends across the academic landscape. Its strategic goal is to position UK industry at the forefront of the exploiting synthetic biology for chemicals and natural products biosynthesis by providing a 'one-stop access' to world class physical infrastructure/scientific knowledge that will propel fine and speciality chemicals production towards sustainable manufacturing processes.

Technical Summary

Manchester has a unique vision for fine and speciality chemicals production using synthetic biology that has been built on a long term strategy. SYNBIOCHEM is central to this strategy and will develop a series of unique and highly integrated interdisciplinary technology platforms and a truly world-leading physical infrastructure for contemporary fine and speciality chemicals production. These technology platforms will drive multiple science programs to accelerate delivery of bespoke synthetic biology solutions for chemicals synthesis by adopting modular 'plug-and-play' platform approaches and a production pipeline that embraces the 'design-build-test-deploy' life-cycle for turning knowledge assets into innovative chemicals production solutions. Dedicated technology scientists will drive these technology platforms together with expert academic leads, and the technology platforms will be managed within the governance framework of the Centre. This will ensure rapid delivery and implementation of tools/technologies across multiple programs relevant to fine and speciality chemicals production. Our vision is that SYNBIOCHEM will become the UK and European Centre of Excellence for expertise and resources for the (re-)design, engineering and analysis of biological parts, devices and systems for sustainable fine and speciality chemicals production. SYNBIOCHEM will stimulate innovation in chemicals biosynthesis and promote leading capability development that will drive new interactions with industry and other stakeholders. SYNBIOCHEM will benefit from the highly multidisciplinary environment and collaborative culture of the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB), its extensive network of industry partners and other stakeholders, MIB's track record in technology and methodology development, and its reputation for delivering competitive biotechnology-focused research to deliver a Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology focussed on the fine and speciality chemicals sector

Planned Impact

The SYNBIOCHEM Centre will generate societal and economic value through integration of wide-ranging and truly innovative research in synthetic biology in the fine and speciality chemicals areas. It will accelerate the translation of novel technology and science programs along the Technology-Readiness Levels towards commercialisation, and will be the national "One-Stop Access" for integration of synthetic biology approaches in fine and speciality chemicals production in terms of technology infrastructure and scientific expertise. The societal and economic value will be generated through the Centre's open collaborative culture, strong leadership and stakeholder engagement and excellence in the foundational and multidisciplinary science that is embedded in the Centre.

The general public will benefit from the open dialogue established by the Centre on the opportunities and risks associated with SynBio applications, through education and outreach activities. The public will be able to contribute their views to the ongoing debate on ethical aspects and help shape pathways to responsible innovation in the field. The Centre will actively provide opportunities for dialogue, bring together expertise (both in synthetic biology science and ethics) to provide the information needed to form informed opinions, and ensure public perspectives are gathered and deliberated upon at an early stage. The insights gained will contribute to the design of effective and responsible research, innovation and governance strategies for emerging synthetic biology technologies.

UK industries across a large range of sectors (e.g., fine chemicals, energy and fuels, pharmaceuticals and therapeutics, biomedical engineering and sensing, agriculture and food) will benefit from the expertise in the Centre and the accelerated access to advances in synthetic biology research. IP generation through activities in the Centre will lead to increased UK-based patent applications, licensing opportunities and potential spin out activity. The activities of the Centre will provide UK companies with a competitive advantage on the global market, based on more efficient and sustainable use of resources and the resulting increase in economic performance. Science in the synthetic biology field is advancing rapidly, and the Centre will progress synthetic biology technology-based applications on route to market by 2020 and beyond. The accelerated transfer of responsible synthetic biology technologies to industrial applications will support cleaner production processes (e.g. green chemistry), more sustainable manufacturing and energy sources (e.g. biofuels), and contribute to the creation of jobs and wealth within the UK chemicals and natural products industries and wider economy.

The UK academic synthetic biology community will benefit from early engagement with responsible synthetic biology research and innovation considerations. Early engagement with industrial partners will enable research at the cutting edge of synthetic biology science that is relevant to market trends. The resulting increased international visibility of UK synthetic biology activities and the intersector networking opportunities will stimulate excellence in synthetic biology research throughout the UK. The multidisciplinary interaction across scientific domains (biology, chemistry, computational science, engineering and the social sciences) will further strengthen the UK research base in synthetic biology. Synthetic biology human capital development throughout the UK will benefit from the inter-institution, interdisciplinary and intersectoral capabilities of the Centre. Students (UG and PG) and academic researchers will benefit from training, mentoring and other Centre activities to advance synthetic biology research applications, industrial engagement, entrepreneurship, and deliberation of responsibility in synthetic biology research and innovation and its societal and economic implications.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Title Illustrations 
Description We hosted the author and book illustrator, Lynne Chapman in our laboratories and meetings where she created alternative perspectives of our activities in a series of sketches. 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact We have used the drawings on our website and printed materials. Displays of the artwork were featured in Manchester exhibitions open to the general public. 
 
Title Perfomance Poetry 
Description SYNBIOCHEM worked with Matt Pranesh a performance poet who presented his take on Synthetic Biology and its future impact at an ESOF spin off activity (evening performance) hosted in the John Rylands Library, Manchester. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
Year Produced 2016 
Impact This was an interesting interaction of scientists and a poet which resulted in a public performance highlighting SynBio. 
 
Description The SYNBIOCHEM Centre has delivered a biofoundry infrastructure capability that supports the engineering of biology and creation of microbial cell factories for chemicals production. It has created new routes to chemicals manufacture and access to new molecules for materials from biology which will help transition to sustainable chemicals production processes and reduce reliance on petrochemicals.
Exploitation Route Work initiated in the Centre is continuing through a portfolio of research grants and interactions with industry. In particular the SYNBIOCHEM Centre is working with the Future Biomanufacturing research hub to utilise the pipeline capability for new routes to chemicals manufacture to accelerate the delivery of chemicals biomanufacturing in the UK.
Sectors Aerospace

Defence and Marine

Chemicals

Manufacturing

including Industrial Biotechology

Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology

URL https://synbiochem.co.uk/
 
Description SYNBIOCHEM set out with an ambitious vision to harness the power of SynBio to deliver microbial routes to fine and speciality chemicals production by enabling a capability step change towards automated and predictive sustainable chemicals biomanufacturing. The Centre award has transformed SynBio research at the University of Manchester (UoM) and nationally, in creating state-of-the-art infrastructure and embedding research expertise that is globally recognised. UoM now hosts world leading technology platforms and a wide portfolio of interdisciplinary SynBio research, with multiple international and industrial collaborations. Activities also led to the establishment of spin out / start up companies bringing new scale-up plants to the NorthWest and associated employment. SYNBIOCHEM was built on a strong foundation of interdisciplinary collaborative research strengths in areas related to synthetic biology. It provided the unique opportunity to develop the biofoundry concept supported by superb infrastructure capabilities (automation, analytics etc). SYNBIOCHEM played a central role in the development of the UK Synthetic Biology research portfolio, advancing fundamental research, supporting the strategic delivery of the SynBio roadmap, and contributing to the policy activities. It paved the way for many new collaborations in engineering biology, the continued development of state-of-the-art laboratory infrastructure in MIB, and the move towards delivery of biomanufacturing solutions for sustainable clean growth. This work has continued beyond the lifetime of the award. The wider community engagement initiated through the interdisciplinary CoI team also continues. The major capital infrastructure provided through the SYNBIOCHEM award now supports diverse academic research projects but also is made available to industry collaborations. This is supported by senior technical staff who worked on the SYNBIOCHEM project now employed as permanent research technology professionals. This infrastructure continues to be recognised globally (e.g., through the Global Biofoundry Alliance) and is a major UK asset.
First Year Of Impact 2022
Sector Chemicals,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology
Impact Types Societal

Policy & public services

 
Description BIA Engineering Biology Sub Committee membership - R Le Feuvre
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Membership of a guideline committee
 
Description BSI Standard for RRI (PAS 440) - P Shapira
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact This BSI Standard for Responsible Research and Innovation provides easy guidelines for adoption by industry.
URL https://pages.bsigroup.com/l/35972/2020-03-17/2cgcnc1?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaig...
 
Description Contributed to the Engineering Biology UK 2030 Chemicals production paper
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description EU-IBISBA (ESFRI Candidature submission)
Geographic Reach Europe 
Policy Influence Type Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health
 
Description Engineering Biology for the UK
Geographic Reach Multiple continents/international 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
URL https://ktn-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/EBLC-Building-back-better-with-Engineering-Biology_upl...
 
Description External advisor for European Commission Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks on synthetic biology
Geographic Reach Europe 
Policy Influence Type Citation in other policy documents
Impact Made huge impact on the policy for defining Synthetic Biology, identifying the risks for Synthetic Biology and future recommendations in Synthetic Biology risk assessment at a European level.
 
Description Strategic review for Industrial Challenge Fund
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description Transatlantic perspective on emerging issues in biological engineering
Geographic Reach Multiple continents/international 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description UK Policy Jisc FAIR in Practice
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description UK SynBio Strategic plan 2016
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description BBSRC
Amount £1,170,000 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/N023536/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 08/2016 
End 08/2021
 
Description BBSRC ALERT 16
Amount £214,394 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/R000069/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2017 
End 07/2018
 
Description BBSRC ALERT 16
Amount £341,417 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/R000093/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2017 
End 05/2018
 
Description BBSRC BIOCATNET award
Amount £46,647 (GBP)
Funding ID IB-SCA 001. 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Department Networks in Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy (NIBB)
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2017 
End 02/2018
 
Description BBSRC FTMA
Amount £141,550 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/R506497/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2017 
End 03/2019
 
Description BBSRC International award
Amount £43,786 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/N021037/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2016 
End 07/2020
 
Description BBSRC Japan Partnering award
Amount £51,000 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/N021975/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2016 
End 06/2020
 
Description BBSRC Partnering award
Amount £51,000 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/N021975/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2016 
End 07/2020
 
Description BBSRC responsive mode Munro
Amount £462,081 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/N006275/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2016 
End 06/2019
 
Description BBSRC slola Micklefield
Amount £1,168,602 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/N23536/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2016 
End 01/2021
 
Description BBSRC-FASEP
Amount £2,082,439 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/P01738X/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2017 
End 12/2021
 
Description Centre for Biocatalytic Manufacture of New Modalities (CBNM)
Amount £2,098,678 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/S005226/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2018 
End 10/2024
 
Description Centre for Biocatalytic Manufacture of New Modalities (CBNM)
Amount £2,098,678 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/S005226/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2018 
End 10/2023
 
Description Dstl award
Amount £107,544 (GBP)
Funding ID 1000101995 
Organisation Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2016 
End 09/2017
 
Description Dstl award
Amount £500,000 (GBP)
Funding ID DSTLX1000101893 
Organisation Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2016 
End 07/2019
 
Description Dstl award
Amount £99,000 (GBP)
Funding ID 10000104112 
Organisation Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2016 
End 03/2017
 
Description Dstl award
Amount £108,000 (GBP)
Funding ID 1000101995 
Organisation Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2016 
End 05/2017
 
Description Dstl award
Amount £99,601 (GBP)
Funding ID DSTLX1000104112 
Organisation Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2016 
End 03/2020
 
Description Dstl award
Amount £96,407 (GBP)
Funding ID DSTLX-100012335 
Organisation Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2017 
End 06/2018
 
Description Dstl award
Amount £83,220 (GBP)
Organisation Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2017 
End 01/2018
 
Description EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in BioDesign Engineering
Amount £7,001,622 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/S022856/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2019 
End 09/2027
 
Description EPSRC materials
Amount £401,000 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/N025504/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2019 
End 05/2019
 
Description EU H2020
Amount £100,399 (GBP)
Organisation European Commission H2020 
Sector Public
Country Belgium
Start 01/2017 
End 12/2019
 
Description EU H2020
Amount £304,312 (GBP)
Funding ID MS SPIDOC 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 08/2018 
End 08/2021
 
Description EU H2020 chassis
Amount £1,289,926 (GBP)
Funding ID 720793-2 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 01/2017 
End 12/2020
 
Description EU H2020 chassis
Amount £819,061 (GBP)
Funding ID 764364 
Organisation European Commission H2020 
Sector Public
Country Belgium
Start 01/2018 
End 10/2021
 
Description EU H2020 chassis
Amount £1,168,602 (GBP)
Funding ID 720793-2 
Organisation European Commission H2020 
Sector Public
Country Belgium
Start 01/2017 
End 12/2020
 
Description EU H2020-GARRI-2015-1
Amount € 1,486,175 (EUR)
Funding ID 710500 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 05/2016 
End 11/2018
 
Description EU H2020-GARRI-2015-1
Amount £148,000 (GBP)
Funding ID 710500 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 05/2016 
End 11/2018
 
Description Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub
Amount £10,284,509 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/S01778X/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2019 
End 03/2026
 
Description GeneORator: a novel and high-throughput method for the synthetic biology-based improvement of any enzyme
Amount £201,893 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/S004955/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2019 
End 08/2021
 
Description H2020 Infrastructure
Amount € 5,000,000 (EUR)
Funding ID H2020: IBISBA 1.0 
Organisation European Commission H2020 
Sector Public
Country Belgium
Start 08/2017 
End 08/2021
 
Description High Resolution High Throughput Mass Spectrometry to Characterise Materials, Chemicals, and BioCatalysts
Amount £1,099,473 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/T019328/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2020 
End 12/2022
 
Description High Resolution High Throughput Mass Spectrometry to Characterise Materials, Chemicals, and BioCatalysts
Amount £1,099,473 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/T019328/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2020 
End 12/2022
 
Description IAA Award - AIBLHiCoS: a novel pKa predictor
Amount £60,175 (GBP)
Funding ID BB/S506692/1 
Organisation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2019 
End 07/2019
 
Description MONOPOLY
Amount £177,697 (GBP)
Funding ID 834816 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 05/2019 
End 06/2021
 
Description Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging for advanced chemical and materials analysis
Amount £810,450 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/T031301/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2020 
End 07/2024
 
Description New Developments in Quantitative 3D Chemical Imaging
Amount £844,822 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/S019863/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2019 
End 06/2023
 
Description OLEAginous yeast platforms for FINE chemicals - OLEFINE
Amount £408,476 (GBP)
Funding ID ERC H2020-NMBP-BIO-2016 
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 01/2018 
End 12/2021
 
Description ONRG
Amount £13,980 (GBP)
Funding ID N62909-17-1-2052 
Organisation ONRG Office of Naval Research Global 
Sector Public
Country United States
Start 04/2017 
End 06/2017
 
Description Reverse engineering the soil microbiome: detecting, modeling, and optimizing signal impacts on microbiome metabolic functions
Amount £859,366 (GBP)
Funding ID NE/T010959/1 
Organisation Natural Environment Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2020 
End 01/2024
 
Description Reverse engineering the soil microbiome: detecting, modelling and optimizing signal impacts on microbiome metabolic functions.
Amount £812,607 (GBP)
Funding ID NE/T010959 
Organisation Natural Environment Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2020 
End 01/2023
 
Description Royal Society
Amount £229,000 (GBP)
Funding ID 1000101995 
Organisation The Royal Society 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 12/2016 
End 12/2018
 
Description ShikiFactory
Amount £8,000,000 (GBP)
Organisation European Commission 
Sector Public
Country European Union (EU)
Start 01/2019 
End 12/2022
 
Description The aspergillus fumigatus gene and non-coding RNA knockout library.
Amount £771,344 (GBP)
Funding ID 208396 
Organisation Wellcome Trust 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2018 
End 12/2021
 
Description Tripping the light fantastic: elucidating global protein structural change correlated with chemical change across the femtosecond to second timescale
Amount £1,419,928 (GBP)
Funding ID EP/S030336/1 
Organisation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2019 
End 09/2024
 
Description UCB CASE
Amount £80,000 (GBP)
Organisation UCB Pharma 
Sector Private
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2015 
End 09/2019
 
Description University matched funding
Amount £500,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Manchester 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 07/2016 
End 07/2019
 
Title Automated Design/Build/Test/Learn pipeline 
Description The Design/Build/Test/Learn pipeline allows rapid prototyping of engineered microbial strains for the production of chemicals and materials. This was highlighted in a recent publication and represents a powerful research "bio-foundry" platform 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This D/B/T/L pipeline is being used to rapidly engineer microbes and represents a major capability of the SYNBIOCHEM Centre. 
URL http://synbiochem.co.uk/synbiochem-pipeline/
 
Title Automated Directed Evolution library-screening platform 
Description Our Directed Evolution (DE) library-screening platform automates cell culture (colony picking, bacterial culture and protein expression) and protein purification (His-tag purification) processes in 96-well format. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Our Directed Evolution (DE) library-screening platform is providing methods that have supported the evolution of key enzymes in the chemical synthesis of mono-terpenes. 
 
Title Automated Ligase Cycling Reaction 
Description We have created an automated optimised ligase cycling reaction assembly platform for assembling genetic pathways to allow fully automated generation of large pathway libraries. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This method is now providing automated generation of large pathway libraries to a wide cohort of users. 
 
Title Biochem4j 
Description A freely available graph database of integrated chemical, reaction, enzyme and taxonomic data, based on the neo4j database. Biochem4j has applications in pathway elucidation, enzyme selection and metabolic modelling, acting as a knowledge base which brings together distributed data into an integrated and queryable system. It currently contains relevant information of known relationships between reactions (36765), chemicals (19735), enzymes (245704) and organisms (8431). Publication: Swainston N, Batista-Navarro R, Carbonell P, Dobson PD, Dunstan M, Jervis AJ, Vinaixa M, Williams AR, Ananiadou S, Faulon JL, Mendes P, Kell DB, Scrutton NS, Breitling R. (2017). biochem4j: Integrated and extensible biochemical knowledge through graph databases. PloS one, 12, e0179130. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Used regularly in our research group. 
URL http://biochem4j.org/
 
Title CodonGenie 
Description Application for designing ambiguous codons to support protein mutagenesis. Given a user-defined target collection of amino acids and an intended host organism, CodonGenie will design and analyse all ambiguous codons that encode the required amino acids. The codons are ranked according to their efficiency in encoding the required amino acids while minimising the encoding of additional amino acids and stop codons. Publication: Swainston N, Currin A, Green L, Breitling R, Day PJ, Kell DB. (2017). CodonGenie: optimised ambiguous codon design tools. PeerJ Computer Science, 7, e120. DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.120. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Protein mutagenesis design tool used by the research group. 
 
Title GenORator 
Description A novel methodology for creating variant libraries for directed evolution, which enables the mutation of large numbers of amino acid codons simultaneously in a controlled and precise manner. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact A patent application has been submitted to protect this methodology and its commercial use is currently being developed through proof-of-concept funding with companies. 
 
Title GeneGenie 
Description An optimised oligomer design tool for variant genetic library design. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact None as yet 
URL http://gene-genie.org
 
Title HTP MS quantification 
Description The Centre's Test team has contributed major innovative mass spectrometry (MS) screening protocols that provide rapid high-throughput quantification for our target compounds, complemented with new data analysis/processing tools. Together these are now providing vital analysis for wide-ranging projects. These include: HTP limonene quantification method using GC-QToF MS (<5-10 mins per sample (compared with >30 mins); HTP flavonoid and alkaloid targeted MS measurements using LC-QqQ MS in 96-well format with reduced screening times of approx. 2min per sample; New analysis software developed (iTERP, R2QqQ and MetTrap) R packages for rapid MS data analysis. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact These tools and methods are providing rapid identification and quantification of our target compounds and underpins much of the work in the Centre. We will make these available to wider audiences in the next year. 
 
Title PartsGenie 
Description A web application for the design of reusable synthetic biology parts that offers simultaneous codon optimisation, RBS design, CDS RBS removal, assembly and synthesis compatibility. It is designed to bridge the gap between optimisation tools for the design of novel parts, the representation of such designs in community-developed data standards such as Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL), and the sharing of designs in journal-recommended data repositories (JBEI-ICE). It facilitates the design, optimisation and dissemination of reusable synthetic biology parts through a single, integrated application. PartsGenie has been used for the design of most synthetic DNA used in the SYNBIOCHEM Centre and elsewhere in the MIB and is now freely available to the wider synthetic biology community. Publication: Swainston N, Dunstan M, Jervis AJ, Robinson CJ, Carbonell P, Williams AR, Faulon JL, Scrutton NS, Kell DB. (2018). PartsGenie: an integrated tool for optimizing and sharing synthetic biology parts. Bioinformatics. 2018 Jul 1;34(13):2327-2329. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Codon optimisation tool used for design of reusable synthetic biology parts. Used regularly by research groups in MIB. 
 
Title Real-time screening of bacterial colonies 
Description To identify new biocatalytic activities is a widely adopted tool in biotechnology, but is constrained by the requirements for colorimetric or tag-based detection methods. Our unique label-free screening platform for biotransformations in live colonies using desorption electrospray ionization coupled with ion mobility mass spectrometry imaging (DiBT-IMMS). The screening method has been demonstrated for both ammonia lyases and P450 monooxygenases expressed within live bacterial colonies, and enables multiplexing of enzyme variants and substrate libraries simultaneously. Yan C, Parmeggiani F, Jones EA, Claude E, Hussain SA, Turner NJ, Flitsch SL, Barran PE. (2017). Real-time screening of biocatalysts in live bacterial colonies. J. American Chemical Soc. 139, 1408-11. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This new label-free platform for screening bio-transformations in live colonies is likely to provide new knowledge and insights to identify biocatalytic activities. 
 
Title RetroPath2.0 
Description Used to explore the chemical biosynthetic space, RetroPath provides an automated open source workflow based on generalized reaction rules that performs retrosynthesis search from chassis to target through an efficient and well-controlled protocol. Publication: Delépine B, Duigou T, Carbonell P, Faulon JL. (2017). RetroPath2.0: A retrosynthesis workflow for metabolic engineers. Metabolic Engineering, 45, 158-70. Koch M, Duigou T, Carbonell P, Faulon JL. (2017). Molecular structures enumeration and virtual screening in the chemical space with RetroPath2.0. Journal of Cheminformatics, 9(1):64. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2016 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact A tool that is regularly used in our research pipeline to find biosynthetic pathways to engineer host organisms 
URL https://www.myexperiment.org/workflows/4987.html
 
Title SelProm 
Description A design tool that serves as a parts repository of plasmid expression strength and predicts portability rules between constituative and inducible plasmids. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2019 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact A design tool used regularly for the prototyping and optimisation of plasmid-based recombinant gene expression 
 
Title Selenzyme 
Description An on line enzyme selection tool for target reactions or set of reactions for metabolic pathway design that allows us to mine candidate enzyme sequences for any desired target reaction or set of reactions in a pathway and the search for alternative routes or pathways leading to non-natural products. Selenzyme uses our biochem4j graph database as its main data source and provides bespoke sequence selection for automated workflows. Publication: Carbonell P, Wong J, Swainston N, Takano E, Turner NJ, Scrutton NS, Kell DB, Breitling R, Faulon JL. Selenzyme: Enzyme selection tool for pathway design. Bioinformatics. 34(12), 2153-2154. This tool is now used by many groups within the University of Manchester but also nationally and internationally 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact This tool is regularly used to identify enzymes in the construction of our engineered pathways in E coli hosts. It is widely used both internally at the University of Manchester but also nationally / internationally through online line free access. 
URL http://selenzyme.synbiochem.co.uk/
 
Title SensiPath 
Description A web server tool (co-developed with Micalis/INRA) to identify putative biochemical transformations of target compounds and allow identification of easily detectable compounds for screening and identification of potential biosensors. Publication: Delepine B, Libis V, Carbonell P, Faulon JL. (2016). SensiPath: computer-aided design of sensing-enabling metabolic pathways. Nucleic acids research, 44: W226-231. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact A computational tool regularly used in our SYNBIOCHEM pipeline 
URL http://sensipath.micalis.fr/
 
Title new instrument platform for the rapid discovery and engineering of biological systems for the manufacture of new advanced Materials from Biology 
Description The Royce Institute for advanced materials research and innovation (www.royce.ac.uk) has partnered with the MIB and Future BRH to provide a new instrument platform for the rapid discovery and engineering of biological systems for the manufacture of new advanced Materials from Biology. This is a crucial and burgeoning area of research for the Royce future Chemicals Material Discovery theme and an important focus for the Future BRH. The infrastructure delivers an internationally field-leading capability offering an integrated and fully automated directed evolution platform. Located on the first floor of the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB), the equipment includes automated colony picking, next generation sequencing (PacBio), UHPLC analytics and a fully integrated robotics platform which was installed in July 2020 (comprising acoustic and pipette based liquid handling robots, incubators, thermal cyclers etc.). 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2020 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Applied to enzyme engineering and synthetic biology protocols the platform complements existing infrastructure and supports research towards: sustainable routes to advanced materials; end of life degradation and recycling; and next generation bio-inspired materials. This equipment is available to new users through academic and industry collaborations. 
 
Title Additional file 2: of Development and validation of an updated computational model of Streptomyces coelicolor primary and secondary metabolism 
Description Table S1. Biomass modifications and recalculation of ATP consumption. (XLS 81Â kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/Additional_file_2_of_Development_and_validation_of_an_u...
 
Title Additional file 2: of Development and validation of an updated computational model of Streptomyces coelicolor primary and secondary metabolism 
Description Table S1. Biomass modifications and recalculation of ATP consumption. (XLS 81Â kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/Additional_file_2_of_Development_and_validation_of_an_u...
 
Title Additional file 2: of Energetic evolution of cellular Transportomes 
Description Data S1. Genomic and transportome data on the organisms included in the study. (XLSX 255Â kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/Additional_file_2_of_Energetic_evolution_of_cellular_Tr...
 
Title Additional file 2: of Energetic evolution of cellular Transportomes 
Description Data S1. Genomic and transportome data on the organisms included in the study. (XLSX 255Â kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/Additional_file_2_of_Energetic_evolution_of_cellular_Tr...
 
Title Additional file 3: of Development and validation of an updated computational model of Streptomyces coelicolor primary and secondary metabolism 
Description iAA1259 metabolic model in SBML format. (XML 4249Â kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/Additional_file_3_of_Development_and_validation_of_an_u...
 
Title Additional file 3: of Development and validation of an updated computational model of Streptomyces coelicolor primary and secondary metabolism 
Description iAA1259 metabolic model in SBML format. (XML 4249Â kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/Additional_file_3_of_Development_and_validation_of_an_u...
 
Title Additional file 4: of Development and validation of an updated computational model of Streptomyces coelicolor primary and secondary metabolism 
Description Excel file specifying metabolites, reactions, genes contained, and databases IDs present in the iAA1259 metabolic model. (XLS 2531Â kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/Additional_file_4_of_Development_and_validation_of_an_u...
 
Title Additional file 4: of Development and validation of an updated computational model of Streptomyces coelicolor primary and secondary metabolism 
Description Excel file specifying metabolites, reactions, genes contained, and databases IDs present in the iAA1259 metabolic model. (XLS 2531Â kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/Additional_file_4_of_Development_and_validation_of_an_u...
 
Title Additional file 6 of Development and validation of an updated computational model of Streptomyces coelicolor primary and secondary metabolism 
Description Table S2. Full detailed data used for the Fig. 4. (XLS 1690 kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/Additional_file_6_of_Development_and_validation_of_an_u...
 
Title Additional file 6 of Development and validation of an updated computational model of Streptomyces coelicolor primary and secondary metabolism 
Description Table S2. Full detailed data used for the Fig. 4. (XLS 1690 kb) 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2018 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/Additional_file_6_of_Development_and_validation_of_an_u...
 
Title CCDC 1571843: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination 
Description Related Article: Issa S. Issa, Helen S. Toogood, Linus O. Johannissen, James Raftery, Nigel S. Scrutton, John M. Gardiner|2019|Chem.-Eur.J.|25|2983|doi:10.1002/chem.201805219 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2019 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/services/structure_request?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc1prmmp&sid=DataCite
 
Title CCDC 1584217: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination 
Description Related Article: Liang Zhang, Alexander J. Stephens, Jean-François Lemonnier, Lucian Pirvu, Iñigo J. Vitorica-Yrezabal, Christopher J. Robinson, David A. Leigh|2019|J.Am.Chem.Soc.|141|3952|doi:10.1021/jacs.8b12548 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2019 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/services/structure_request?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc1q5hs5&sid=DataCite
 
Title CCDC 1584218: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination 
Description Related Article: Liang Zhang, Alexander J. Stephens, Jean-François Lemonnier, Lucian Pirvu, Iñigo J. Vitorica-Yrezabal, Christopher J. Robinson, David A. Leigh|2019|J.Am.Chem.Soc.|141|3952|doi:10.1021/jacs.8b12548 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2019 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/services/structure_request?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc1q5ht6&sid=DataCite
 
Title CCDC 1584219: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination 
Description Related Article: Liang Zhang, Alexander J. Stephens, Jean-François Lemonnier, Lucian Pirvu, Iñigo J. Vitorica-Yrezabal, Christopher J. Robinson, David A. Leigh|2019|J.Am.Chem.Soc.|141|3952|doi:10.1021/jacs.8b12548 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2019 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/services/structure_request?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc1q5hv7&sid=DataCite
 
Title CCDC 1813180: Experimental Crystal Structure Determination 
Description Related Article: Matthew Cummings, Anna D. Peters, George F. S. Whitehead, Binuraj R. K. Menon, Jason Micklefield, Simon J. Webb, Eriko Takano|2019|PLOS Biol.|17|e3000347|doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000347 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2020 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/services/structure_request?id=doi:10.5517/ccdc.csd.cc1yvrp7&sid=DataCite
 
Title MIBiG 
Description Bacteria, fungi and plants produce an enormous variety of small functional molecules with manifold biological activities, e.g., as antibiotics, immunosuppressants, and signaling molecules. The biosynthesis of such molecules is encoded by compact genomic units (biosynthetic gene clusters). Over the past decades, hundreds of biosynthetic gene clusters encoding the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites have been characterized. Although dozens of biosynthetic gene clusters are published and thousands are sequenced annually (with or without their surrounding genome sequence), very little effort has been put into structuring this information. Hence, it is currently very difficult to prioritize gene clusters for experimental characterization, to identify the fundamental architectural principles of biosynthetic gene clusters, to understand which ecological parameters drive their evolution, and to obtain an informative 'parts registry' of building blocks for the synthetic biology of secondary metabolite biosynthesis. Therefore, developing a genomic standard for experimentally characterized biosynthetic gene clusters (e.g., Minimum Information about a BIosynthetic Gene cluster, MIBiG) would be of great value to the field of microbial secondary metabolism. Building on the MIxS standards for ecological and environmental contextualization, information on, e.g., enzyme function, substrate specificities, functional subclusters, regulatory and transport systems, operon structure, chemical moieties of the end compound and its intermediates, biosynthetic precursor compounds, compound bioactivity and molecular targets and compound toxicity could be added to allow cross-linking the information to biochemistry, pharmaceutical properties, genomic structure and ecology. Using the already developed computational pipeline for analysis of biosynthetic gene clusters antiSMASH (http://antismash.secondarymetabolites.org/), which has quickly become a standard in the field, information on characterized biosynthetic gene clusters will be linked to the untapped wealth of thousands of unknown gene clusters that have recently been unearthed by massive genome sequencing efforts. Taken together, this has the potential to guide the characterization of new metabolites by allowing to optimize the sampling of diversity at different levels and to identify the biochemical, genomic and ecological parameters that are key predictors of pharmaceutically relevant biological activities. Moreover, it can transform the unordered pile of literature on secondary metabolites into a structured and annotated catalogue of parts that can be used as building blocks to design new biochemical pathways with synthetic biology. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2015 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact MIBiG will the better description and contextualization of sequence data, of important sequence elements, with concrete biotechnological applications that will increase the visibility and applicability of the GSC and its mission in the fields of applied microbiology, synthetic biology, natural products chemistry and enzymology. 
URL http://gensc.org/projects/mibig/
 
Title MOESM1 of Analysis of drugâ endogenous human metabolite similarities in terms of their maximum common substructures 
Description Additional file 1. Workflow of Fig. 2 used to generate the data shown in Fig. 1. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/dataset/MOESM1_of_Analysis_of_drug_endogenous_human_met...
 
Title MOESM1 of Analysis of drugâ endogenous human metabolite similarities in terms of their maximum common substructures 
Description Additional file 1. Workflow of Fig. 2 used to generate the data shown in Fig. 1. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/dataset/MOESM1_of_Analysis_of_drug_endogenous_human_met...
 
Title MOESM1 of Molecular structures enumeration and virtual screening in the chemical space with RetroPath2.0 
Description Additional file 1. Monomers maps obtained running Retropath2.0 in section â Virtual screening in the chemical spaceâ . The 17 compounds of the 158 available monomers that can be naturally synthesized and the corresponding synthesis pathways. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/MOESM1_of_Molecular_structures_enumeration_and_virtual_...
 
Title MOESM1 of Molecular structures enumeration and virtual screening in the chemical space with RetroPath2.0 
Description Additional file 1. Monomers maps obtained running Retropath2.0 in section â Virtual screening in the chemical spaceâ . The 17 compounds of the 158 available monomers that can be naturally synthesized and the corresponding synthesis pathways. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/MOESM1_of_Molecular_structures_enumeration_and_virtual_...
 
Title MOESM3 of Analysis of drugâ endogenous human metabolite similarities in terms of their maximum common substructures 
Description Additional file 3. Comparison of endogenites with endogenites in terms of their maximum common substructures. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/dataset/MOESM3_of_Analysis_of_drug_endogenous_human_met...
 
Title MOESM3 of Analysis of drugâ endogenous human metabolite similarities in terms of their maximum common substructures 
Description Additional file 3. Comparison of endogenites with endogenites in terms of their maximum common substructures. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/dataset/MOESM3_of_Analysis_of_drug_endogenous_human_met...
 
Title MOESM3 of Molecular structures enumeration and virtual screening in the chemical space with RetroPath2.0 
Description Additional file 3: Table S1. Solution space reduction arguments or rules corresponding to bond configurations in section â Isomer transformationâ . This is shown for the 36 rules after reduction of the solution space by problem symmetry arguments. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/MOESM3_of_Molecular_structures_enumeration_and_virtual_...
 
Title MOESM3 of Molecular structures enumeration and virtual screening in the chemical space with RetroPath2.0 
Description Additional file 3: Table S1. Solution space reduction arguments or rules corresponding to bond configurations in section â Isomer transformationâ . This is shown for the 36 rules after reduction of the solution space by problem symmetry arguments. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/MOESM3_of_Molecular_structures_enumeration_and_virtual_...
 
Title MOESM4 of Analysis of drugâ endogenous human metabolite similarities in terms of their maximum common substructures 
Description Additional file 4. Comparison of marketed drugs with marketed drugs in terms of their maximum common substructures. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/dataset/MOESM4_of_Analysis_of_drug_endogenous_human_met...
 
Title MOESM4 of Analysis of drugâ endogenous human metabolite similarities in terms of their maximum common substructures 
Description Additional file 4. Comparison of marketed drugs with marketed drugs in terms of their maximum common substructures. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/dataset/MOESM4_of_Analysis_of_drug_endogenous_human_met...
 
Title MOESM4 of Molecular structures enumeration and virtual screening in the chemical space with RetroPath2.0 
Description Additional file 4: Table S2. List of 40 compounds from section â Metabolome completion and metabolomicsâ having an identifier in MetaNetX and produced by three identical reactions (i.e. reactions having the same substrates and products) generated using the Sympheny, BNICE and D6 rule sets. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/MOESM4_of_Molecular_structures_enumeration_and_virtual_...
 
Title MOESM4 of Molecular structures enumeration and virtual screening in the chemical space with RetroPath2.0 
Description Additional file 4: Table S2. List of 40 compounds from section â Metabolome completion and metabolomicsâ having an identifier in MetaNetX and produced by three identical reactions (i.e. reactions having the same substrates and products) generated using the Sympheny, BNICE and D6 rule sets. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/MOESM4_of_Molecular_structures_enumeration_and_virtual_...
 
Title MOESM5 of Analysis of drugâ endogenous human metabolite similarities in terms of their maximum common substructures 
Description Additional file 5. Comparison of endogenites with marketed drugs in terms of their maximum common substructures. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/dataset/MOESM5_of_Analysis_of_drug_endogenous_human_met...
 
Title MOESM5 of Analysis of drugâ endogenous human metabolite similarities in terms of their maximum common substructures 
Description Additional file 5. Comparison of endogenites with marketed drugs in terms of their maximum common substructures. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/dataset/MOESM5_of_Analysis_of_drug_endogenous_human_met...
 
Title MOESM5 of Molecular structures enumeration and virtual screening in the chemical space with RetroPath2.0 
Description Additional file 5: Table S3. List of the 19 SMARTS rules that were used in this study. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/MOESM5_of_Molecular_structures_enumeration_and_virtual_...
 
Title MOESM5 of Molecular structures enumeration and virtual screening in the chemical space with RetroPath2.0 
Description Additional file 5: Table S3. List of the 19 SMARTS rules that were used in this study. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2017 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/MOESM5_of_Molecular_structures_enumeration_and_virtual_...
 
Description CDT BioDesign Engineering 
Organisation Imperial College London
Department Department of Infectious Disease & Epidemiology
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution This is an EPSRC funded CDT programme run by Imperial College with the University of Manchester and University College London. We are working to provide PhD training both to the whole cohort (through RRI training elements) but also to individual PhD students who will work with the Centres as part of their Masters project and conduct their PhDs registered at the University of Manchester. We are full collaborators on this project
Collaborator Contribution Provision and hosting of PhD training.
Impact This is a multidisciplinary collaboration training PhD students in BioDesign Engineering.
Start Year 2019
 
Description CDT BioDesign Engineering 
Organisation University College London
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution This is an EPSRC funded CDT programme run by Imperial College with the University of Manchester and University College London. We are working to provide PhD training both to the whole cohort (through RRI training elements) but also to individual PhD students who will work with the Centres as part of their Masters project and conduct their PhDs registered at the University of Manchester. We are full collaborators on this project
Collaborator Contribution Provision and hosting of PhD training.
Impact This is a multidisciplinary collaboration training PhD students in BioDesign Engineering.
Start Year 2019
 
Description Global Biofoundry Alliance 
Organisation Imperial College London
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution The SYNBIOCHEM centre has partnered with other biofoundries across the globe to share expertise and knowhow; intensify collaboration and communication; develop technical and operational responses to common challenges; enhance visibility, impact and sustainability of non-commercial biofoundries; and explore globally relevant and societally impactful grand challenge collaborative projects.
Collaborator Contribution Partners are sharing expertise and knowhow in a similar way to the SYNBIOCHEM biofoundry to intensify collaboration and communication; develop technical and operational responses to common challenges; enhance visibility, impact and sustainability of non-commercial biofoundries; and explore globally relevant and societally impactful grand challenge collaborative projects.
Impact Sharing of expertise across the design/build/test/learn synthetic biology disciplines. Resulted in joint seminar series and workshops to share ideas and develop collaborations.
Start Year 2019
 
Description Henry Royce Institute 
Organisation Henry Royce Institute
Department Henry Royce Institute – University of Manchester Facilities
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution This collaboration has seen the development of a major equipment capability in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology. The new infrastructure which includes an integrated automation platform and next generation sequencing will provide major capabilities for the rapid discovery and evolution of molecules for materials and the engineering of new advanced materials from biology.
Collaborator Contribution Major funding has been provided by the Henry Royce institute for equipment infrastructure which will support interdisciplinary collaborations with the Institute. This capability is being technically supported by members of the SYNBIOCHEM Centre and Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub.
Impact This is a multidisciplinary collaboration which will bring together expertise in biocatalysts, synthetic biology, biomanufacturing/biotechnology and materials scientists.
Start Year 2019
 
Description Manchester Tsignhua PhD Partnership 
Organisation Tsinghua University China
Country China 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution SYNBIOCHEM developed collaborations with Tsinghua which led to the development of a 2+2 dual degree PhD programme in synthetic and systems biology with applicants spending years at Manchester and Beijing. From early collaborations and the signing of a memorandum of understanding the scheme is funded jointly between the 2 institutions.
Collaborator Contribution Tsinghua collaborator George Guoqiang Chen signed a memorandum of understanding which developed into a strong relationship and co-funding of the PhD scheme.
Impact The first set of PhD students started the course in September 2020
Start Year 2018
 
Description University of Osaka metabolomics 
Organisation Osaka University
Country Japan 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution We aim:To establish strong and successful research collaborations in the analytical area of synthetic biology for fine and speciality chemical between top research groups in the UK and Japan for added potential value to BBSRC and JST science portfolios; Share access to top quality research facilities, technical knowledge and expertise in both institutions, and benefit from the added strengths implied by the complementarity of instrumentation at each institute, helping develop imaging MS as a functional tool in synthetic biology; Provide early career scientists/postdoctoral fellows an opportunity to develop their own expertise and ideas by experiencing international groups and helping prepare their own independent grant applications; Establish joint proof-of-concept research resulting in joint grant applications and collaborative partnerships
Collaborator Contribution The Osaka team will help to establish joint proof-of-concept synthetic biology based research using novel imaging mass spectrometry platforms in tandem with established untargeted metabolomics methodologies;To establish strong and successful research collaborations in the analytical area of synthetic biology for fine and speciality chemical between top research groups in the UK and Japan for added potential value to BBSRC and JST science portfolios; Share access to top quality research facilities, technical knowledge and expertise in both institutions, and benefit from the added strengths implied by the complementarity of instrumentation at each institute, helping develop imaging MS as a functional tool in synthetic biology; Establish joint proof-of-concept research resulting in joint grant applications and collaborative partnerships
Impact The project has just started but we have already started collaborations with the University of Osaka metabolomics group by inviting them to Manchester and holding a Bacterial Metabolomics Workshop on 24th June 2016 with invited speakers: Nicola Zamboni (ETH Zurich), Eiichiro Fukusaki (Osaka University), Karsten Hiller (University of Luxemburg), Sanjay Swarup (National University of Singapore), Shuichi Shimma (Osaka University), Sastia Putri (Osaka University), Rainer Breitling (University of Manchester). In 22-27 May 2017, Katherine Hollywood (named from Manchester) visited Osaka for one week; Eriko Takano and Rainer Breitling visited University of Osaka 14th March 2017 and both gave a seminar to the MSc and PhD students; PhD student Katsuaki Nitta visited to University of Manchester, 26 June-31 July 2017 to learn Streptomyces cultivation techniques and the QExactive analysis; Eriko Takano visited Aug 2017 and had a close discussion with Sastia Putri, Prof Fukusaki and Katsuaki Nitta on the project; Dr Kamila Schmidt (1 Oct - 12 Oct 2018) and Prof Eriko Takano (1- 17 Oct 2018) visited University of Osaka, Prof Fukusaki's lab to work together with Sastia Putri and Katsuaki Nitta on Streptomyces metabolomics using wt M145 strain versus antibiotic overproducer to determine possible metabolic engineering strategies arising from the semi-targetted metabolomics analysis-- this is a multidisciplinary collaboration: synthetic biology, metabolomics, computational modelling; a second workshop was organised on 28 June 2019 "Shimadzu Metabolomics Workshop" which was sponsored partly by Shimadzu with speakers from Shimadzu, Osaka University and University of Manchester which also included talks from early career researchers from both Manchester and Shimadzu; Prof Rainer Breitling and Prof Eriko Takano visited Osaka University on 19-24 July 2019 to give a seminar to the overseas MSc course in Department of Advanced Science and Biotechnology and to discuss further with Prof Fukusaki's group, Sastia Putri's group and Katsuaki Nitta on the use of informatics in the metabolomic analysis; Prof Eriko Takano visited University of Osaka on 25-31 Oct 2019 for futher discussions; Prof Eriko Takano visited University of Osaka on 15 -28 Feb 2020 to participate in the final year MSc presentations of the MSc course in Department of Advanced Science and Biotechnology and to discuss with Katsuaki Nitta on his PhD project. This was a crucial meeting as Katsuaki Nitta will need to finish his thesis by Dec 2020 and detailed discussion took place for publication strategy. Takano, Breitling lab in University of Manchester had several Skype conferences with Fukusaki lab, Sastia Putri and Katsuaki Nitta on metabolic modelling of Streptomyces coelicolor -- this is a multidisciplinary collaboration on metabolomics, computational modelling; Takano has been invited to be a honorary Professor/Cross-appointment at the University of Osaka, allowing her to stay in Osaka for 4 weeks/year from April 2018-March 2020 A new project collaboration has started with a MSc student Marvin Nathanael Iman, who is in the Fukusaki lab, however the student has decided to move on and has now started a new project. Takano had several zoom meetings with Sastia Putri and Katsuaki Nitta on Nitta's PhD project. Nitta's PhD project has led to two publications: Nitta K, Breitling R, Takano E, Putri SP, Fukusaki E. Investigation of the effects of actinorhodin biosynthetic gene cluster expression and a rpoB point mutation on the metabolome of Streptomyces coelicolor M1146. J Biosci Bioeng (2021) in press.; Nitta K, Del Carratore F, Breitling R, Takano E*, Putri SP*, Fukusaki E. Multi-omics analysis of the effect of cAMP on actinorhodin production in Streptomyces coelicolor. Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol. (2020) 8, 595552. (*joint corresponding authors). A new MSc student Mary Faith Adan has started in University of Osaka to collaboration on metabolomics on Streptomyces supervised by Dr Sastia Putri and Prof Fukusaki in Feb 2021.
Start Year 2016
 
Title Biosynthetic Mint: 
Description A partnership with GlaxoSmithKline resulted in a UoM patent for producing a menthol isomer. 
IP Reference US20160289702 
Protection Patent granted
Year Protection Granted 2016
Licensed Commercial In Confidence
Impact None
 
Title Compositions and methods for recombinant biosynthesis of propane 
Description New synthetic biology routes to renewable bio-propane. 
IP Reference US20170218401 
Protection Patent application published
Year Protection Granted 2017
Licensed Yes
Impact None to date
 
Title Monoterpenoid biosynthesis 
Description This follows on from the early patenting of the biosynthetic routes to menthol and the second patent protects the identity of a key evolved enzyme derived from keto steroid isomerase. 
IP Reference GB1719530.6 
Protection Patent granted
Year Protection Granted 2017
Licensed No
Impact None as yet.
 
Title Polyketides 
Description Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for expressing a soluble type II polyketide synthase (PKS) in an E.coli host, the method comprising introducing a nucleic acid sequence 
IP Reference GB1810747.4 
Protection Patent application published
Year Protection Granted 2018
Licensed No
Impact Nothing yet
 
Title Variant Nucleotide Library 
Description The application related to the GenORator methodology for creating variant libraries for directed evolution. 
IP Reference GB1709308.9 
Protection Patent application published
Year Protection Granted 2017
Licensed No
Impact This work is being developed through further proof-of-concept funding.
 
Title Biochem4j 
Description A freely available graph database of integrated chemical, reaction, enzyme and taxonomic data, based on the neo4j database. biochem4j (71) has applications in pathway elucidation, enzyme selection and metabolic modelling, acting as a knowledge base which brings together distributed data into an integrated and queryable system. It currently contains relevant information of known relationships between reactions (36765), chemicals (19735), enzymes (245704) and organisms (8431). Swainston N, Batista-Navarro R, Carbonell P, Dobson PD, Dunstan M, Jervis AJ, Vinaixa M, Williams AR, Ananiadou S, Faulon JL, Mendes P, Kell DB, Scrutton NS, Breitling R. (2017). biochem4j: Integrated and extensible biochemical knowledge through graph databases. PloS one, 12, e0179130. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2017 
Open Source License? Yes  
Impact This graph database is providing the Centre with an extended knowledge base to inform our chemical pathway design. 
URL http://biochem4j.org
 
Title CodonGenie 
Description Freely available web application for designing ambiguous codons to support these protein mutagenesis applications. Given a user-defined target collection of amino acids and an intended host organism, CodonGenie will design and analyse all ambiguous codons that encode the required amino acids. The codons are ranked according to their efficiency in encoding the required amino acids while minimising the encoding of additional amino acids and stop codons. Swainston N, Currin A, Green L, Breitling R, Day PJ, Kell DB. (2017). CodonGenie: optimised ambiguous codon design tools. PeerJ Computer Science, 7, e120. DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.120. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2017 
Impact This in silico design tool provides optimal design of biosynthetic parts to support higher efficiency use and support for protein mutagenesis applications. 
URL http://codon.synbiochem.co.uk
 
Title MOESM2 of Analysis of drugâ endogenous human metabolite similarities in terms of their maximum common substructures 
Description Additional file 2. Python code used to generate substructures. 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2017 
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/software/MOESM2_of_Analysis_of_drug_endogenous_human_me...
 
Title MOESM2 of Analysis of drugâ endogenous human metabolite similarities in terms of their maximum common substructures 
Description Additional file 2. Python code used to generate substructures. 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2017 
URL https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/software/MOESM2_of_Analysis_of_drug_endogenous_human_me...
 
Title PartsGenie 
Description A new web application for the design of reusable synthetic biology parts. PartsGenie offers simultaneous codon optimisation, RBS design, CDS RBS removal, assembly compatibility and synthesis compatibility. It is designed to bridge the gap between optimisation tools for the design of novel parts, the representation of such designs in community-developed data standards such as Synthetic Biology Open Language (SBOL), and the sharing of designs in journal-recommended data repositories (JBEI-ICE). It facilitates the design, optimisation and dissemination of reusable synthetic biology parts through a single, integrated application. PartsGenie has been used for the design of most synthetic DNA used in the SYNBIOCHEM Centre and elsewhere in the MIB and is now freely available to the wider synthetic biology community. Dobson PD, Batista-Navarro R, Ananiadou S, Mendes P, Kell DB, Swainston N. A Metabolic reaction balancing web service for computational systems biology. BMC Syst Biol. In review. Aug. 2017. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2017 
Open Source License? Yes  
Impact A new design tool for the design and optimisation and dissemination of reusable synthetic biology parts in a single application. 
URL http://parts.synbiochem.co.uk
 
Title RetroPath2.0 
Description To expand access to diverse chemical targets we have continued to develop our retrosynthesis approach that explores the chemical biosynthetic space. RetroPath2.0 provides an automated open source workflow based on generalized reaction rules that performs retrosynthesis search from chassis to target through an efficient and well-controlled protocol. Its ease of use and the versatility of its applications make this tool a valuable addition to the biological engineer workbench. We demonstrated its application for the identification of alternative biosynthetic routes through enzyme promiscuity. Furthermore, we demonstrated its ability to perform inverse molecular design and search bioactive molecules over chemical space, providing an automated procedure for chemical target prioritization. Delépine B, Duigou T, Carbonell P, Faulon JL. (2017). RetroPath2.0: A retrosynthesis workflow for metabolic engineers. Metabolic Engineering, 45, 158-70. Koch M, Duigou T, Carbonell P, Faulon JL. (2017). Molecular structures enumeration and virtual screening in the chemical space with RetroPath2.0. Journal of Cheminformatics, 9(1):64. Lopez O, Pastor M, Sanz F, Carbonell P. (2018). Hepatotoxicity prediction by systems biology modelling of disturbed metabolic pathways using gene expression data. Methods in Molecular Biology, volume "Computational Toxicology", In press. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2017 
Open Source License? Yes  
Impact This new in silico design tool explores chemical biosynthetic space to identify optimum biosynthetic routes and associated enzymes for new synthetic gene pathway design that will enable biosynthetic routes towards the synthesis of chemical compounds in microorganisms. 
URL http://www.myexperiment.org/workflows/4987.html
 
Title Selenzyme 
Description The online enzyme selection tool for metabolic pathway design, Selenzyme, is helping us to mine candidate enzyme sequences for any desired target reaction or set of reactions in a pathway. The tool combines multiple data sources and screening of target reactions not necessarily existing in databases, allowing the search for alternative routes or pathways leading to non-natural products. Selenzyme uses our biochem4j graph database as its main data source. Selenzyme also provides bespoke sequence selection for automated workflows where a resulting pathway design is submitted to the next stage of the pipeline. Carbonell P, Wong J, Swainston N, Takano E, Turner NJ, Scrutton NS, Kell DB, Breitling R, Faulon JL. Selenzyme: Enzyme selection tool for pathway design. Bioinformatics. Accepted. Sept. 2017. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2017 
Open Source License? Yes  
Impact This in silico design tool is providing the Centre with alternative enzyme pathways for the production of natural and non-natural products in our biosynthetic production lines. 
URL http://selenzyme.synbiochem.co.uk
 
Title SensiPath 
Description SensiPath (http://sensipath.micalis.fr/): web server (co-developed with Micalis/INRA) to identify putative biochemical transformations of our target compounds to allow identification of easily detectable compounds for screening and identification of potential biosensors. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2016 
Open Source License? Yes  
Impact New in silico modelling tool for identification of biochemical transformations made available for wider use. 
URL http://sensipath.micalis.fr/
 
Company Name C3 Biotech 
Description C3 Biotech develops a bio-propane manufacturing process, aiming to lower greenhouse gas emissions. 
Year Established 2015 
Impact None yet - too early
Website http://c3biotech.com
 
Company Name Imperagen 
Description Imperagen develops technology to accelerate the development of enzyme biocatalysts for use in drug discovery. 
Year Established 2021 
Impact This company has just set up labs in Manchester science park with major investment to recruit and develop the expert team.
Website https://imperagen.com/
 
Company Name Manchester BioFactory 
Description Manchester BioFactory develops an enzyme discovery and development platform. 
Year Established 2019 
Impact None as yet.
Website https://mcrbiofactory.wordpress.com/
 
Description 2021 iGEM Manchester team supervisor 
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 More than 300 UG and more than 100 researcher attended the iGEM jamboree where we presented our project to bring awareness and discussions in synthetic biology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://2021.igem.org/Team:Manchester
 
Description 2022 iGEM Manchester team supervisor 
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 More than 300 UG and more than 100 researcher attended the iGEM jamboree where we presented our project to bring awareness and discussions in synthetic biology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://2022.igem.wiki/manchester/
 
Description American association for the advancement of science, Seattle, WA USA. 
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 SYNBIOCHEM representation at this international conference by our Responsible Research and Innovation team. This conference is advertised as the Worlds largest general scientific gathering.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018,2019,2020
URL https://www.aaas.org/
 
Description Biochemical society online meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Mark Dunstan presented a talk at the Biochemical society Synthetic Biology series topic of Industrial Biotechnology in November 2020
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Blog posts 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The secretive 'second world' of human synthetic biology (A. Balmer, The Guardian, 18/05/16); Synthetic Biology: Reshaping the Future (PLOS SynBio Blog 1/16) https://t.co/v91JxkPFWf.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2016/may/18/the-secretive-second-world-of-huma...
 
Description British Science Week 
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 SYNBIOCHEM researchers and our iGEM team hosted an interactive demonstration of fragrance compounds at the UoM annual British Science Week fair (14-17/03/17) and engaged visitors (~1100 students, ages 9 - 14) with the potential of synthetic biology approaches for green and sustainable chemical manufacture. Our RRI researchers also ran a stand collecting opinions on the production of menthol using synthetic biology (Annex 7).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description College presentation Japan 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Senior Experimental Officer, Adrian Jervis employed on the SYNBIOCHEM grant delivered a talk and Q&A session to Hiroo Gakuen Junior and High School pupils, Japan.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description EPS Big Green Gathering 
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 The Big Green Gathering was hosted in North Campus by the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences on 8th March 2016. The event sought to engage ~150 members of the public with sustainable research initiatives from across the faculty, through the use of infographics designed by researchers. The submission by the MIB, detailing the area of industrial biotechnology and including examples of research from the institute, won 1st prize in the popular votes across all three categories: most informative, most creative and most interesting. Researchers from the MIB visited Levenshulme High School on 15th March 2016 to take part in their annual science exhibition. Around 400 key stage 3 and 4 students were engaged with the research conducted at Manchester in the field of glycoscience through arts and crafts style building of glycans and the popular cell invaders video game.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description ESOF 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact ESOF - EuroScience Open Forum 2016 was held in Manchester. SYNBIOCHEM hosted:
Science program (joint with EU programme SYNENERGENE) - Synthetic Biology and the new bio-industrial revolution - how will we ensure Responsible Research and Innovation - attended by approx. 70 people with 4 science talks followed by round table discussions.
Science to Business program - Synthetic Biology - the pathway to commercialisation. panel discussion with industry leads (GSK, Synthace, ThermoFisher, SynBiCite, BioBricks Foundation).
Early Career Researcher event in the MIB - Perspectives on Synthetic Biology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.esof.eu/
 
Description ESOF sessions 
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 Half-day workshop "Opening doors on RRI" provided a unique discussion platform on putting RRI policies into practice and brought together experts from across the EU.
It featured debates and practical workshops.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://manchester2016.esof.eu/en/the-programme/responsible-research-and-innovation.html
 
Description ESOF sessions 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact A science programme of short talks and dialogue session - "Will synthetic biology deliver the new Bio-industrial revolution - and how can we ensure Responsible Research and Innovation?". This session was a joint venture between SYNBIOCHEM and SYNENERGEN (EU FP7 RRI consortium).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://manchester2016.esof.eu/en/the-programme/science-programme.html
 
Description ESOF sessions 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact A Science to Business Programme as part of the Euro Science Open Forum (Manchester 2016), "SynBio - the pathway to commercialization". This was a panel debate session with industry representatives and academic input.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://manchester2016.esof.eu/en/the-programme/science-to-business-programme.html
 
Description Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub Launch Event 
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 Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub Launch Event
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub hosted seminar - The Biotechnology of Brewing (Prof Charles Bamford) 
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 Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub hosted seminar (online) - The Biotechnology of Brewing (Prof Charles Bamford)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-biotechnology-of-brewing-tickets-113282416758
 
Description Global BioFoundry Alliance member, SYNBIOCHEM was a founding member. 
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 Biofoundries provide an integrated infrastructure to enable the rapid design, construction, and testing of genetically reprogrammed organisms for biotechnology applications and research. Many biofoundries are being built and a Global Biofoundry Alliance has recently been established to coordinate activities worldwide. A number of working groups have been established to expand biotechnology development capacities.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018,2019,2020
URL https://biofoundries.org/
 
Description Greater Manchester Industrial Strategy launch event 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Greater Manchester Industrial Strategy launch event, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, 13th June 2019
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.gov.uk/government/news/bio-tech-gets-boost-with-new-local-industrial-strategy-for-greate...
 
Description MIB Open Day Stands/Tours 
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 The Manchester Institute of Biotechnology Open Day provides an interactive science event open to schools and colleges across the North West. SYNBIOCHEM hosted an interactive stand and provided laboratory demonstrations that showcased the D/B/T pipeline at this years event (23/11/18) to approx. 160 A' Level students.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description MIB Open Day Stands/Tours 
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 The Manchester Institute of Biotechnology Open Day provides an interactive science event open to schools and colleges across the North West. SYNBIOCHEM hosted an interactive stand and provided laboratory demonstrations that showcased the D/B/T pipeline at this years event (24/11/17) to approx. 180 A' Level students.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015,2016,2017,2018
 
Description Multi-Lingual Science 
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 Centre, supported by Dr Nick Weise (Lecturer, E-Learning Lead, MIB) has been involved with a number of Multilingual Manchester interactions at which our scientists delivered interactive science sessions at language schools at the weekend. A second visit to the local supplementary language Huaxia Mandarin School (19/03/17) introduced students to the chemistry of enzymes and sugars in Mandarin Chinese (Yan, Kwok, Weise and Huang, 19/03/17).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description NSEW Science Fair 
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 Members of research group presented exhibit on topics of enzymes and proteins. Event was well received by both students and their teachers and seemed to inspire interest in the subject.
Additional stand on SynBio for flavours and fragrances hosted by the iGEM team (2016)

No defined impacts realised to date
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012,2013,2014,2015,2016
 
Description NTI Biosecurity Innovation and Risk Reduction Initiative - P Cai 
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 Prof. Cai has participated in continued activity with the Biosecurity Innovation and Risk reduction initiative
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.nti.org/about/projects/fostering-biosecurity-innovation-and-risk-reduction/event/biosecu...
 
Description New Scientist Live 
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 A stand on a stand on DNA and Synthetic Biology of Fragrances at the New Scientist Live which is an award-winning, mind-blowing festival of ideas and discoveries for everyone curious about science and why it matters. For four days in September, it transforms London, the world's most exciting capital city, into the most exciting place in the universe. More than 140 speakers and 100 exhibitors come together in one venue to create an unrivalled atmosphere and energy, packed with thought-provoking talks, ground-breaking discoveries, interactive experiences, workshops and performances.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://live.newscientist.com/
 
Description New Statesman and MIB Webinar: Biotechnology - The Catalyst for a Sustainable Future 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Panel discussion with George Freeman MP, Dr Yvonne Armitage, Professor Lionel Clarke, Professor Rob Field and Jon Bernstein. Accompanied by a magazine produced with an article by N Scrutton and K Malone "Biomanufacturing: a path to sustainable economic recovery".
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.newstatesman.com/2020/06/new-statesman-and-mib-webinar-biotechnology-catalyst-sustainabl...
 
Description Online broadcast research presentation Fuels for Seawater 
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 Online research presentation (BioChannel TV) on Fuels for Seawater
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://video.ibm.com/recorded/128525699
 
Description Online research presentation Next Generation Biomanufacturing for the Bio-Revolution: An International Opportunity 
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 On December 3, 2020 Ontario Genomics in partnership with Policy Horizons Canada and SynBio Canada presented as part of the third Canada's Bio-Revolution Webinar Series, "Next Generation Biomanufacturing for the Bio-Revolution: An International Opportunity"
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://vimeo.com/487094282
 
Description Podcast - 'Lefteris asks science - Edition 13 - How do we use spider silk? (With Dr. Aled Roberts)' 
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 Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Podcast - 'Lefteris asks science - Edition 13 - How do we use spider silk? With Dr. Aled Roberts' (Research Fellow, Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.lefterisasks.com/episode/lefteris-asks-science-edition-13-how-do-we-use-spider-silk-with...
 
Description Pop-up stands on Menthol 
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 Menthol pop-up stands were presented by the SYNBIOCHEM RRI team at 1) The Body Experience (Manchester Museum, 18/03/2017( mainly attracted young families) and British Science week (13-17/03/17) to approx. 1000 school children.provided an opportunity to bring science into public spaces with diverse participants. These stalls invited passers-by to interact with the taste, smell, sight and touch of menthol products. Participants shared comments about their experiences with menthol products, offered thoughts about different ways of producing menthol, and views on menthol made through synthetic biology were captured (approximately 150 people stopped by providing approx. 270 postcard responses). Some people's reactions to synthetic biology focused on the use of E. coli and there were concerns that using bacteria could be problematic, whilst others were not personally worried about genetic engineering, but thought there were "other people" who would not like consumer products that were genetically engineered.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description RI Talk - fuels of the future 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Manchester University Alumni Event: Hear from our panel of leading academics from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology as they explore the challenges of developing the fuels of the future, the solutions we are delivering and why Manchester is leading the world in industrial biotechnology.

One of the main challenges our society faces is the dwindling level of oil reserves which we not only depend upon for transport fuels, but also plastics, lubricants and a wide range of petrochemicals. As the 21st century progresses, and we move towards more bio-based economies, we need solutions for the manufacture of chemicals that are smarter, more predictable and more sustainable.

From underpinning strategic research to the transfer of technology into the marketplace, The University of Manchester has a range of worldclass activities supporting the need for solutions that can play their part in meeting the global energy challenge.

Just as Manchester was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, The University of Manchester is now leading the way, both nationally and across Europe, towards a bio-industrial revolution.

Panel: Professor Nigel Scrutton (Chair), Professor of Enzymology and Biophysical Chemistry, Professor David Leys, Professor of Structural Biology, Professor Eriko Takano, Professor of Synthetic Biology
Venue: The Royal Institution of Great Britain, London
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Research presentation Biocatalyst engineering and synthetic biology platforms for monoterpene production in E. coli 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact Guest lecture for undergraduates at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences (Rotterdam, Netherlands) on the 'Biocatalyst engineering and synthetic biology platforms for monoterpene production in E. coli'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Research presentation Microbial cell factories - engineering biology for chemicals production 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Online research presentation, at UK Catalysis Hub webinar on 'Microbial cell factories - engineering biology for chemicals production'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://ukcatalysishub.co.uk/microbial-cell-factories-engineering-biology-for-chemicals-production/
 
Description ScienceX 
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 Scientists and engineers from the University of Manchester took over the various attractions in and around the Trafford Centre on 23rd and 24th April 2016 as part of their Science Extravaganza or ScienceX. With exhibits and activities in the main building, LEGOLAND, Chill Factore and the Sealife Centre an estimated 10,000 shoppers were engaged throughout the weekend as a non-traditional science outreach audience. Researchers from the MIB/SYNBIOCHEM were involved in coordination of and participation in ocean acidification demonstrations at the aquarium, chemistry of ice experiments at the artificial ski slope and various biotechnology-related exhibits in the main shopping areas. One participant even wrote on their feedback form that the part of the day they enjoyed the most was the main demonstration stand from the MIB:
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description ScienceX Trafford Shopping Centre 
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 Science stands at the Trafford Centre over the weekend in April 2018 used to communicate SYNBIOCHEM research and synthetic biology/Biotechnology in general.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description ScienceX Trafford Shopping Centre 
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 As part of the UoM Faculty of Science and Engineering's strategy to engage non-traditional audiences researchers once again took over the Trafford shopping Centre (22-23/04/17) to talk to members of the general public about science and engineering. SYNBIOCHEM representatives hosted an interactive stand at the SEALIFE Centre that used simple experiments and leaflets to inform visitors about ocean acidification and provided the opportunity to learn about how the use of biotechnology could reduce atmospheric CO2 levels. SYNBIOCHEM Social science researchers engaged shoppers with synthetic biology research on menthol production. The opinions and queries received are being used as part of the Centre's RRI initiative to involve the public in the scientific development process.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Scientific and technological challenges in defining a new paradigm for sustainable biomaterials. 
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 SYNBIOCHEM worked closely with Dstl and the Office for Naval Research Global (ONRG) to deliver a workshop (MIB, 16-17/05/17) that explored the "Scientific and Technological challenges in defining a new paradigm for sustainable biomaterials". The meeting set out to discuss and identify the opportunities that SynBio can bring to the materials arena. The report helped define a roadmap for the development of infrastructure and expertise for the discovery, assembly and integration of widely diverse biomaterials and their composites, and the establishment of revolutionary new ways for biomaterials production and evaluation. This road map is being used to take this
convergence of SynBio and materials fields forward and develop funding for this area.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description SynBiTECH 2020 
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 SynbiTECH Virtual 2020 is Europe's only international synthetic biology conference for innovators and experts in synthetic biology research, commercialisation, investment and policymaking.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.synbitech.com
 
Description Synthetic Biology Leadership Council, Science and Technology sub-committee, Scrutton sits on this committee with SYNBIOCHEM providing information on activities. 
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 The UK Government established the Synthetic Biology Leadership Council (SBLC) to provide a steering structure governance body to assess progress and update recommendations and shape priorities for future implementation of the synthetic biology roadmap for the UK.
Continued investment in Synthetic Biology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017,2018,2019,2020
URL https://ktn-uk.co.uk/programmes/synthetic-biology-leadership-council
 
Description TEA, LCA, SE perspectives workshop 
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 Industry focused workshop explored Techno-economic, Life-cycle and Socio-economic perspectives of biomanufacturing production processes.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description UK BioIndustry Association, Engineering Biology Advisory Committee, Le Feuvre sits on this panel. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact The Engineering Biology Advisory Committee (EBAC) is composed of industry experts in engineering/synthetic biology and provides a forum for BIA members to discuss and keep abreast of the key issues associated with the rapidly increasing pace with which we can engineer biology.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018,2019,2020
URL https://www.bioindustry.org/bia-membership/advisory-committees/engineering-biology-advisory-committe...
 
Description UKSynBio2017 
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 UKSynBio17 meeting held in Manchester was organised by Takano and Le Feuvre in partnership with the Biochemical Society (27-28/11/17). This event brought together the UK SynBio community (~230 attendees) with a fantastic line up of international keynote speakers from academia and industry, 19 selected short talks and 70 poster presentations.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014,2017
URL https://www.biochemistry.org/Events/tabid/379/MeetingNo/SA207/view/Conference/Default.aspx
 
Description UKSynBio2018 
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 UKSynBio conference in Bristol. Attended by approximately 10 participants from SYNBIOCHEM
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Visit by Chinese Minister of Science & Technology, Mr Wang Zhigang 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Visit by Chinese Minister of Science & Technology, Mr Wang Zhigang
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Visit by Chris Skidmore MP, Minister for State for BEIS 
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 Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Visit by Chris Skidmore MP, Minister for State for BEIS
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description iGEM 2020 
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 Organised the Manchester iGEM team for 2020. iGEM is an annual international student competition in synthetic biology, providing a great interdisciplinary learning opportunity for our students from all faculties. This year's Manchester iGEM team worked throughout the summer in very unusual circumstances. The team project was Hipposol, aimed at producing an eco-friendly sunscreen, derived from hippopotamus sweat, in genetically engineered bacteria.
They were probably the first iGEM team to successfully use computational retrosynthesis for their project, and with the help of the Manchester Business School they comprehensively explored the social and economic implications of their ideas using a Responsible Research and Innovation approach.
The Manchester 2020 iGEM team won a Gold medal and was nominated for the "Best Supporting Entrepreneurship" award in this year's iGEM (Virtual) Giant Jamboree
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://2020.igem.org/Team:Manchester
 
Description iGEM teams 
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 Takano has organised the Manchester iGEM team since 2012 with Prof Rainer Breitling. The iGEM competition (International Genetically Engineered Machine competition: https://igem.org/Main_Page) is a prestigious international synthetic biology event, with more than 300 participating teams from international universities (form all over the world), who present their summer research at a Giant Jamboree in Boston. iGEM is a major opportunity for undergraduate students to acquire interdisciplinary and transferable skills and to show their achievements in an international setting. The total number of participants is well over 500 with each team having more that 10 members. Our Manchester teams have been very successful and have achieved a gold medal for four years; in 2016 they won not only the gold medal, but also scooped the special award for 'Best Computational Model' - and were also shortlisted for the 'Best Education and Public Engagement' award. We had very interesting topics from Palm oil production in E. coli to alcohol patch on skin to detect and make aware alcohol consumption. Many discussions involving NGOs(e.g. friends of the earth, green peace, alcohol anonymous) and public institutions (e.g. police, NHS hospitals, FBI) and industry (cheese makers, brewery, confectionery). All of the teams achievements have increased awareness in synthetic biology and sparked many discussion afterwards. We still receive interest for a topic which was done in 2012. More information of the Manchester teams can be found at https://igem.org/Team.cgi http://2018.igem.org/Team:Manchester http://2017.igem.org/Team:Manchester http://2016.igem.org/Team:Manchester; http://2015.igem.org/Team:Manchester-Graz;
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015,2016,2017,2018,2019,2020
URL http://synbiochem.co.uk/igem-Manchester/