I can finally share our last work on
#CRISPR
for metabolic engineering just out in
@naturecomms
We developed a highly multiplexed, inducible system for simultaneous activation and repression of target genes.
I summarise some key results below (1/6)
Please RT: I am hiring for a unique position of Research Fellow / Senior Researcher / Senior Postdoc!
Join my
#synbio
lab
@imperialcollege
to coordinate and supervise research, apply for grants, write papers, and assist managing the team.
➡️ Apply now!
I am honoured to take on the role of Director at the new Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein at
@imperialcollege
, where we will address some of the greatest challenges of our food system.
I can't wait to bring this project to life!
@BezosEarthFund
#Sustainability
#engbio
Our new Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein has launched today! 🎉
@BezosEarthFund
has granted us $30 million to establish the Centre. Together, we will transform our food systems and protect our planet 🌍💚
I am super excited to share our latest work published in
@nchembio
This is a story about synthetic microbial communities that helps us understand microbial interactions and construct better biofactories!
#synbio
#meteng
Full paper:
Summary below 👇🏼
Feeling honoured to have received the
@imperialcollege
President’s Awards for Excellence in Research - Medal for Outstanding Early Career Researcher. I am thankful to everyone who made it possible, especially
@ImperialBioeng
,
@IC_CSynBio
and my team!
Our last work is now out in
@NatureMicrobiol
!
We developed a molecular toolkit to engineer microbial communities.
It enables the control of population dynamics and demonstrated that synthetic communities improved the production of a food antioxidant 🍇
#MDPIMetabolites
We are pleased to announce that the winner of the Metabolites 2020 Young Investigator Award is Dr. Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro, from Imperial College London, UK. Read more:
Bad news ☹️: Our food system is far from perfect and highly unsustainable
Good news 🙂: Engineering Biology and
#synbio
give us the tools to rethink food manufacturing
➡️ In our last review,
@aliciagraham22
and I discuss the promise of microbial food
Wouldn’t it be great (and cheap) to control gene expression with electricity? In our last preprint, we present an expanded toolset (including novel genetic parts, circuits and devices) to do so. Great to see iGem projects developing into papers!
This is finally out! We have built a model for the fastest growing bacteria known to date: V. natriegens. The model is able to predict growth, gene essentiality, substrate utilisation,metabolic fluxes and resource allocations. Great collaboration UK-USA-Spain.
#synbio
&
#sysbio
We are hiring motivated
#postdocs
to work on
#synbio
and
#meteng
with one of my favourite bugs, Yarrowia lipolyitica. Advanced metabolic pathway engineering at
@IC_CSynBio
with great Industrial and Academic partners. Please apply, get in touch or RT.
Central carbon metabolism can be dynamically controlled to maximise the production of value chemicals! This is achieved by a synthetic feedback loop linked to gene activation/repression. Great
#synbio
collab with Prof Long. Find our article at
@nchembio
:
I have a 2 years postdoc position open to work on
#meteng
and
#synbio
at
@imperialcollege
Metabolic Engineering of the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica for lipid production in collaboration with
@valley_dao
.
Apply now 👇🏼
Thanks for the
#SRUKTalent
Award
@ComunidadCeru
&
@FBancoSantander
! It’s a real honour!
(Apologies Twitter World for the recent unexpected self-promotion tweets. It’s been a happy/lucky week)
SRUK Emerging Talent Award
We are pleased to announce that Dr Rodrigo Ledesma Amaro
@LedesmaAmaro
has been awarded the 2021
#SRUKTalent
Award, a prize sponsored by
@FBancoSantander
to recognise the talent and innovation of Spanish researchers in the UK!
Last work from the group out of the press in
@NatureComms
!
Here we looked at baker yeast 🥐🍺 through the single-cell lenses 🔎🦠
We found out genetically identical subpopulations with different behaviours emerging in response to amino acid identity.
Some pics from our lab away day in Brighton on Friday. It was real fun! Thanks everyone for such a nice day and especially
@aliciagraham22
and Kiyan for organising an amazing treasure hunt! And the invited PI
@DrLeoRios
for joining!
Have a look at our
#synbio
review about C1 substrates utilisation (methanol, formate, CO2 and others) just out in
@nchembio
. Amazing labs have done amazing progress in this field! Is efficient C1 utilisation in heterologous microbes possible by
#meteng
?
>>
A review article by
@LedesmaAmaro
@weijian16329397
and colleagues surveys natural metabolic pathways for utilization of C1 substrates and their adaptation towards creating synthetic C1-utilizing microbes. Free to read:
I was about to tweet about our last paper, aimed to use electricity to control gene expression, but would not be better than the amazing summary by
@JLawrence_96
⬇️
For those far from the
#synbio
field, you can know more about this work here:
Ever wanted to turn on a gene with electricity? Our work on
#synbio
and
#electrochemistry
tools for electronic control of gene expression is out now in
@ScienceAdvances
! ⚡🦠 Here's a summary of our findings 🧵 1/11
Exciting upcoming postdoc position in my group at Imperial College! Interested in Synthetic Biology and microbial communities with cool biotech applications? Contact me!. Working closely with
@DrTomEllis
and
@gbstan
. Please RT
Congratulations to Dr Lucie Studena who has just got her well deserved PhD degree! Thanks to Prof
@gbstan
and Prof Paul Fraser for being the examiners. Thanks
@ProfTomEllis
for the cosupervison. Cool stuff on microbial communities,
#CRISPR
and
#bioproduction
!
We are hiring 1 academic and 3 manger positions to join the new Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein
@imperialcollege
➡️1 PI position to work on alternative proteins
➡️1 Centre Manager
➡️1 Head of impact, innovation and growth
➡️1 Marketing and communications Lead
➕info⬇️
In our last published work we explore modularity in the bioproduction of flavours/fragrances: modular cloning, modular pathways and also modular synthetic microbial communities!
#synbio
#meteng
@IC_CSynBio
@ImperialBioeng
You can read this here👇🏼
Don’t miss the February issue of
@CellSystemsCP
! It is all about microbial communities! 🦠 Cool perspectives & reviews and many different opinions on the “key challenges for engineering microbiomes” (including my two cents on the topic). 👇🏼
We are hiring motivated
#postdocs
to work on
#synbio
and
#meteng
with one of my favourite bugs, Yarrowia lipolyitica. Advanced metabolic pathway engineering at
@IC_CSynBio
with great Industrial and Academic partners. Please apply, get in touch or RT.
Having some fun with the team in our end of winter social! 🎳 We missed a few people enjoying well deserved holidays ⛷ so we should start planning the next one! What should we do next? It’s great to be able to meet in person and celebrate together again!
By now you have probably realised that our food system is highly unsustainable!
What can we do about it?
What are we (researchers, industry, stakeholders) doing about it?
Join our Forum next Tuesday and learn about the future of food 🥘👇🏼
@imperialcollege
#Sustainability
#Food
Well done
@IgemImperial
team in your first presentation at the
#iGEM2022
jamboree!
If you 🫵🏼 are in Paris tomorrow Thursday, don’t miss their talk at 14:00 in plaza 4 and learn how engineered spores can help fight hunger & come to the poster to discuss with the team! 🦠⚙️🌱
Great
#fems2023
conference in Hamburg with a cherry on top: best poster award to
@KiyanS1
for our heterogeneity work (
@ERC_Research
)!Well done Kiyan 👏🏻👏🏻
#synbio
meets skin microbiome! We have just launched our multidisciplinary EIC pathfinder project
#SkinDev
with an amazing kickoff event in Barcelona. I am already learning so much! Thanks
@Synbio_Lab_UPF
for a great organisation.
1/3🧬🦠Green light for the EU project
#SkinDev
to engineer skin microbiomes for detecting and treating skin inflammation.
👩🏽🔬👨🏿🔬
@Synbio_Lab_UPF
,
@TanakaGroup
,
@LedesmaAmaro
, Ellen Van den Bogaard & Bernhardt Homey
💵 European Innovation Council
👉🏽
I am looking for an Operating and Grant Manager to join my lab!
If you like
#synbio
and would like to take part in shaping the next grants and research directions of the lab and be involved in brainstorming, writing and execution (no actual experiments), get in touch! ✉️
Have a look at our last month’s contributions to
#CRISPR
#synbio
:
1) expressing up to 12 gRNAs at once for high multiplexing:
and 2) CRISPR meets Ashbya gossyipii:
I have a 2 years postdoc position open to work on
#meteng
and
#synbio
at
@imperialcollege
Metabolic Engineering of the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica for lipid production in collaboration with
@valley_dao
.
Apply now 👇🏼
Well done
@IgemImperial
team in your first presentation at the
#iGEM2022
jamboree!
If you 🫵🏼 are in Paris tomorrow Thursday, don’t miss their talk at 14:00 in plaza 4 and learn how engineered spores can help fight hunger & come to the poster to discuss with the team! 🦠⚙️🌱
Next IC-CSynB seminar on 8 February - by Prof Pablo Nikel (DTU Biosustain)
@PabloINik
!
Join us to hear about extreme cellular chemistry by metabolic engineering!
In person (SAF120, ICL SouthKen) or online.
Open to everyone!
Sign up here:
Open PhD position in my group at Imperial College,
@ImperialBioeng
and
@IC_CSynBio
in collaboration with
@gbstan
: Engineering synthetic microbial consortia for next-generation biotechnology!
Email me if interested. More info at
A great
#postdoc
opportunity in applied computational biotechnology ! Exciting
#synbio
project and amazing international partners from academia and industry. Apply now!
New PostDoc position in the
@gbstan
group in collab w/
@LedesmaAmaro
, EU partners & industry on "Computational synthetic biology for the bioproduction of high-value molecules in microbial communities". Pls RTs.💻🦠
Details & how to apply (deadline 17 Sep):
Are you looking for a
#postdoc
in applied
#synbio
and metabolic engineering? Join the group at
@imperialcollege
for this exciting project using the trendy yeast Yarrowia lipolytica: please RT
The March issue of TIBTECH reviews rational design of mouse models, multi-omics in aquaculture, lipid yields in algae, yeast cell factories, cold biosurfactants, and more: Articles by
@ARC_ABM
,
@MortenLimborg
,
@ReneWijffels
,
@LedesmaAmaro
, and others.
We are hiring! The Postdoc position in
#synbio
and/or
#meteng
is now open for applications at
🇬🇧 Imperial College London
🧫 Meet the group:
📩 Get in touch: r.ledesma-amaro
@imperial
.ac.uk
Exciting upcoming postdoc position in my group at Imperial College! Interested in Synthetic Biology and microbial communities with cool biotech applications? Contact me!. Working closely with
@DrTomEllis
and
@gbstan
. Please RT
A huge congratulations 👏👏 to the 35 PhD students and post-doctorates who are part of the L'Oréal-
@UNESCO
Young Talents France class of 2021.
Discover the
#FWIS
program created by the
#FondationLOreal
and supported by
@AcadSciences
and
@CNFUnesco
➡️
Please RT: I am hiring for a unique position of Research Fellow / Senior Researcher / Senior Postdoc!
Join my
#synbio
lab
@imperialcollege
to coordinate and supervise research, apply for grants, write papers, and assist managing the team.
➡️ Apply now!
Excellent news that the UK rejoins our partners in European research
Collaboration is more important than ever to secure a safe, sustainable and healthy future
Amazing and heroic work by my former PhD student, Dr Alice Boo (now in Chris Voigt’s lab at MIT), and a wonderful collaboration with Harman Mehta (continuing the work of Alice) and
@LedesmaAmaro
.
@RAEngNews
@ImperialBioeng
Fantastic discussions (and cool gif) about the potential of Life Sciences in Space 🪐 with a great intervention by
@angeles_hg
presenting her work on
#synbio
for Space Exploration!
Thank you to everyone who joined us for the UK Space Life and Biomedical Science Symposium last week.
We were joined by some fantastic speakers within the Space and Health & Life Sciences sectors for our panel discussions and spotlight sessions.
@UK_SpaceLABS
#SpaceLABS2021
A bit of science communication fresh out of the lab! 📽
1. Waste to products with
#synbio
featuring our
#SyCoLim
project:
2. Burger of the future by our
@IgemImperial
team:
They need your 👍🏻 for the
@ERA_CoBioTech
contest!
By now you have probably realised that our food system is highly unsustainable!
What can we do about it?
What are we (researchers, industry, stakeholders) doing about it?
Join our Forum next Tuesday and learn about the future of food 🥘👇🏼
@imperialcollege
#Sustainability
#Food
We are hiring! The Postdoc position in
#synbio
and/or
#meteng
is now open for applications at
🇬🇧 Imperial College London
🧫 Meet the group:
📩 Get in touch: r.ledesma-amaro
@imperial
.ac.uk
Are you looking for a
#postdoc
in applied
#synbio
and metabolic engineering? Join the group at
@imperialcollege
for this exciting project using the trendy yeast Yarrowia lipolytica: please RT
I am very happy to present this previously preprinted work, and now published in
@PNASNews
. A long journey starting as one of my PhD chapters. I cannot but thank all the coauthors for this effort
(5/6) Metabolic Engineering:
We constructed a single gRNA array targeting 11 metabolic genes which allowed us to tune their expression in a single transformation. Succinic acid production increased 60 times!
This can speed up strain engineering.
I am please to announce we have been awarded a Imperial College London Network of Excellence in Fungal Science. The Network will bring together over 20 principal investigators working across the themes of biotechnology and engineering, infection, ecology and evolution.
Finally we also tested how syntrophic communities perform in combination with division of labour for bioproduction. Interestingly, in most cases these engineered communities produce higher yields than the monoculture control! (Bottom right graph)
What does the future of food look like?
We recently hosted Imperial's inaugural Future of Food Forum - exploring the challenges and potential of alternative proteins.
Read a write-up:
Congratulations to our four academics who have won
@erc_research
Starting Grants this year. The grants recognise some of the best, young scientists across Europe
#ERCStG
. Find out more:
All started with my super talented master student
@ericsouth_
(now graduate student
@DunlopLab
). We started a fantastic collaboration with
@RalserLab
and it’s robots 🤖. And two super scientists continued the work
@LaraSellesVidal
&
@simranolak
, + invaluable help of co-authors
(3/6) Inducibility:
We found out that gRNA arrays targeting prometer regions can express even without a promoter, which makes leakiness an issue.
@willmshaw
designed a way to stop leakiness which allowed us to control when CRISPR regulation starts.
We are passionate about sustainability and the greener production of food, ingredients, pharmaceuticals, etc and therefore aimed to produce Resveratrol as a PoC using synthetic communities engineered with our toolkit. Some communities outperformed monocultures!
One particular case was a bit less expected, a pair that was exchanging pathways intermediates instead of end products (trp2-trp4). We characterised this interaction with MS. Researchers out there working on nutrient exchange in microbiomes should consider all metabolites!
1 Academic position 🧑🔬️ to work on alternative proteins in the department of Bioengineering available to all levels (lecturer, senior lecturer, reader, professor – equivalent to assistant, associate and full professor).
Apply ➡