🥳Excited to share our latest collaborative work using whole-cell models and #AI to design genomes!🦠🧬 What a time to be alive! Project led by Ioana Gherman, with Kieren Sharma, Joshua Rees-Garbutt, Claire Grierson, Lucia Marucci, Wei Pang & Zahraa Abdallah #synbio authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Very excited to attend and speak at this years #UKOMAIN Multimodal AI workshop at the Barbican. Already learning a lot about emulators and generative models for novel materials.

🚨I have a fully funded 4-year #PhD opportunity in my lab on 'Tuneable multi-input genetic logic circuits for designer probiotics'.🦠 We'll be throwing all the tech we have at this one to make reliable engineering of diverse microbes a reality. Applicants must be UK national...

Come and join us at a free complementary Japan-UK Engineering Biology meeting after the main ESSL conference (essl2025.org/). A few spaces left to some see some of the up and coming superstars of #synbio in the UK!

Standard day in Bristol... balloons!

Reading some wonderful old Russian mathematics on automata theory and love this comment that just popped up! Coming from the rural countryside of Somerset, I'm not sure the people quite match this analysis! 🤠

I've become obsessed by the idea of "design" in all aspects of synthetic biology. How do we discover good bio-design? How will it make me feel? Does it even matter? This awesome post by iA is the first that resonates in terms of how we might get there... ia.net/topics/maker...

Although I've now taken a back seat, it is great to see the growing adoption of SBOL Visual in the synthetic and engineering biology literature and even more awesome to see so many current and visiting students to my lab on the author list😍 Roll on 2035! arxiv.org/abs/2507.04601

What to agument your favourite protein with new functionalities? 🛠️ We've got a #biodesign workflow to help with that! In work led by @georgiehs.bsky.social we present SIMPLIFE that blends biophyscial and #ML models to extend biology in useful ways. #synbio doi.org/10.1101/2025...

What to learn a bit about some of the topics explored at the Japan-UK Synthetic Biology Conference earlier this year? Then, check out our meeting report now out in ACS Synthetic Biology. Big thanks to all the authors and Patrick Cai and Masato Kanemaki for organising! #synbio doi.org/10.1021/acss...

Great to see this report out from the UK Government Office for Science on 'Mirror Life'. Was nice to contribute to the discussions and thoughts on this topic with other UK colleagues. #synbio www.gov.uk/government/p...

Some days I’m reminded of why working in research can be so exciting. Imaging DNA at the sub-nanometre scale on this beast! High-speed scanning #AFM for the win.

🚨Anyone want a job?🚨 We have two #postdocs up for grabs! 🧪 - cell developmental biology/#evodevo/#neuroevodevo - bioinformatics and molecular biology Both working on brain evolution in Heliconiini butterflies Details below! Please repost 🙏 1/n

For those of you interested in the convergence of AI and Engineering Biology, keep the 15–16 Jan 2026 free. Next “AI, Engineering Biology and Beyond” #AIEBaB will be in Bristol, UK! Organisation currently underway and more info to follow soon!

Recombinases your thing? In the latest from my lab, Veronica Greco shows how @nanopore sequencing + automated liquid handling provides the perfect platform for characterising these systems at scale! Awesome collaboration with @jennbrophy.bsky.social @sarah-guiziou.bsky.social doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Had an awesome time at #IEEE #ASYNC2025 this year in the beautiful Portland OR. Such a vibrant and open community. Thanks to the organisers. Hopefully this is the start of some new intersections between asynchronous circuits and engineered biology!

Loving the latest Pace Layers journal from the @longnow.org This article hit home to me on the small bits of reflection we all can do to better appreciate our place in this world. Worth a read. longnow.org/ideas/deep-t...

Awesome visit to @royalsociety.org to see some of the treasures in their collection, followed up by a fun session with some of the Imperial #synbio "crew" feat. @proftomellis.bsky.social @ceronifranci.bsky.social Ouldridge Lab. Highlights were Micrographia and the TODO list of the early fellowship!

Learn how Cas9-enrichment + @nanoporetech.com sequencing can more fully uncover biodiversity in complex environments via targeted metabarcoding in latest from lab! Led by the hugely talented Lucia Nikolaeva-Reynolds who started this as her final year undergraduate project! doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

Interested in a #postdoc in #originsoflife research? Are you a geek who loves #RNA, #RNAseq and tinkering, with a background in #biochemistry, #chemistry or #biophysics? Join #bubblelife! Apply now by email (CV + a short motivation letter)! cordis.europa.eu/project/id/1...

Looking for a PhD? I have a fully funded one for UK nationals on engineering gene circuits in probiotic microbes. Will bring together a lot of existing stands of #synbio research in my group and push towards some exciting applications! Start date Sept 2025. Email me if interested! Pls RT

Data-driven inference of digital twins for high-throughput phenotyping of motile and light-responsive microorganisms https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.21.639423v1

Data-driven inference of digital twins for high-throughput phenotyping of motile and light-responsive microorganisms https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.21.639423v1

Phenotyping motile microorganisms is always a challenge. In the latest from the lab led by Andrea Giusti, we show how our #DOME platform can speed up the processes, enabling data-centric inference of digital twins and routes to multicellular control! 🦠💨🔦 doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Experimental evolution of evolvability | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Just now in Science: Researchers at the Institute for Protein Design report a computationally-designed, multi-step enzyme. Learn how they did it: www.asimov.press/p/ai-enzymes

Happy International Women and Girls in Science Day. I celebrate Emily Noether, capturing the remarkable relationship between conservation and symmetry in Noether's theorem. Einstein said she was a "creative mathematical genius."

Wow!

It’s been a tough few weeks. My 10yo daughter was diagnosed with a very rare, aggressive cancer called interdigitating dendritic cell sarcoma (IDCS). I’m reaching out to identify clinicians/patients who have encountered pediatric IDCS or other (non-LCH) dendritic or histiocytic sarcomas cases.

That's all folks 🐰 Time for sake, sushi and sleep! #japanuksynbio

Final talk of the whole conference by Joy Zhang, speaking about "Care-full synthesis: How RRI can help lead to better science and better policies". Some important broader considerations for everything going on in engineering biology. www.kent.ac.uk/school-of-so... #japanuksynbio

Moe Yabuta is now speaking about self-growing protocell models in aqueous two-phase system induced by internal DNA replication reaction. Beautiful talk by a PhD student... one to watch! #japanuksynbio

Patrick Cai now providing a tour de force on engineering and safeguarding synthetic genomes. So many exciting projects in his lab and to hear about how the field is progressing - look at all those big papers! 🤯 #japanuksynbio

Tatsuo Fukagawa is now telling us about artificial generation of the kinetochore to understand its assembly mechanism. www.cell.com/trends/genet... #japanuksynbio

On to a new session on fundemental and foundational technologies! Masato Kanemaki now talking about some facinating inducible degron systems and attempts to create an artificial replication origin in human cells. www.nature.com/articles/nme... #japanuksynbio

Takashi Ito end this session on eucaryote engineering speaking about engineering gene duplications via Cas9 nickase-midiated replication fork breakage. Is there nothing CRISPR/Cas cannot do?! www.cell.com/cell-genomic... #japanuksynbio

Francesca Ceroni kicks off the second part of this session of eukaryote engineering telling us about host-aware cell engineering tools to overcome issues of burden and to improve robustness. www.nature.com/articles/s44... #japanuksynbio

Yasunori Aizana end this part of the session telling us about large-scale human genome engineering for basic science and therapy. Interesting insights into the role of "non-coding" DNA using synthetic genomics approaches. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #japanuksynbio

Nozomu Yachie is now telling us about creating an HD video recorder for cells. Amazing use of DNA as a media to record cellular events! www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1... #japanuksynbio

Time to kick off day 2 with Ben Lehner advocating to "mutate everything" - why not! I'll be posting while chairing the next session, so apologies for the typos. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #japanuksynbio

Yuka Iwasaki now speaking on transcriptional silencing by small non-coding RNAs. Mind-blowing how many different types of small RNA exist. Yuka focusing on piRNAs with interesting functions in silencing transposable elements. #japanuksynbio

Hirohide Saito now speaking about RNA synthetic biology for mammalian cell programming. Some cool approaches to RNA evolution and generative design using AI! #japanuksynbio

While the science has been top notch at #japanuksynbio symposium... I've also fallen in love with the Japanese aesthetic of cute (and sometime crazy) cartoon characters everywhere! The western aesthetic is so clinical and dry, it's like a breath of fresh air 😍

A shift now to the engineering of Acinetobacter sp. Tol 5 as a new cellular chassis for #synbio by Masahito Ishikawa. Excitig to see what new opportunities this will offer for the production of organic compounds and the application of it native adhesion to solid surfaces. #japanuksynbio

Continuing on the mobility theme, Makoto Miyata is now telling us about mobility and life origins using a minimal bacterium (JCVI-syn3B). So many pretty movies to watch and insane that only a couple proteins needed to generate such dynamic complexity! #japanuksynbio

Hana Kiyama is now telling us about something close to my heart - reconstituting swiming motility in a minimal cell (JCVI-syn3B). So interesting to see how movement can be generated by co-opting components from completely unrelated organisms. #japanuksynbio

Michael Brockhurst @brockhurstlab.bsky.social now telling us about some facinating work on engineering mobile elements and phage. So many exciting potential applications in medicine and in situ engineering of communities. #japanuksynbio

Norikazu Ichihashi is now telling us about an in vitro central dogma. Can we produce a truly self-regenerating system for biomanufacturing? #japanuksynbio

Yutetsu Kuruma asks what is life, and can we create a synthetic self-sustained cell. Great use of the PURE system to create reproducible and synthetic cells with increasing complexity we can understand. #japanuksynbio

Very inspiring talk by Paul Freemont on the insane number of ways cell free extracts are being used to characterise and produce biological products. Loved the work on EVs and OMVs! #japanuksynbio