Meet our research staff
Meet the researchers shaping the future of engineering biology. Our experts combine creativity, curiosity and cutting‑edge science to tackle global challenges in health, sustainability and materials.
Professor of Computer Science and Director of the National Centre for Text Mining
My research focuses on developing interpretable, robust and trustworthy natural language processing (NLP) models that help us extract structured information from large-scale, unstructured text. Through the National Centre for Text Mining, I helped to pioneer the field, and developed foundational tools and platforms that model complex data relationships which support drug repurposing, clinical research and scientific discovery.
I'm currently focusing on agentic AI, culturally aware and emotionally robust large language models and cross-domain misinformation detection. I am also leading internationally recognised research in mental health NLP including developing models for detecting depression, psychosis and cognitive decline.
My previous contributions to the field include automatic summarisation, evidence-based medicine, systematic reviews, and financial NLP including systems for evidence synthesis, risk analysis, and regulatory compliance.
Alongside my roles in the MIB and NaCTeM I am also a Deputy Director of the Pankhurst Institute and an ELLIS Fellow.
Reader in Computational Biocatalysis
My group uses quantum chemical and molecular dynamics methods to understand enzyme activity and guide enzyme engineering. Using computational tools, we study how the second coordination sphere, electric fields and charge distribution shape catalysis, providing essential insights for creating more efficient and selective biocatalysts. We also study how heme and nonheme iron enzymes contribute to natural product biosynthesis and predict how engineering can alter their selectivity.
Our work includes revealing how thiol dioxygenases like Cysteine Dioxygenase help the brain detoxify cysteine; uncovering the selectivity rules of nonheme iron enzymes in antibiotic biosynthesis enableing new antibiotic design; and analysing drug‑metabolising cytochrome P450 enzymes to improve drug safety.
We also examine the iron‑based enzymes involved in environmental detoxification, including those that break carbon–fluorine bonds, to support sustainable pollutant remediation. Alongside this, we explore biomimetic models and engineered proteins to inform new catalyst and therapeutic systems design.
Professor of Biotechnology
My lab and I work closely with industry to improve how modern medicines are made, especially protein‑based therapies and viral‑vector medicines used in areas like gene therapy. These medicines are produced by living cells, which act as tiny “factories.” My research focuses on understanding and improving how these cells grow, how they function and how we can engineer and control them so they work more efficiently and reliably. Cell‑based manufacturing can lower costs, increase the availability of life‑changing treatments and make medicine production more sustainable.
Throughout my career, I’ve helped shape the UK’s national strategy for bioprocessing by working with government and industry partners. My work is also recognised internationally through roles with organisations such as the European Society for Animal Cell Technology (ESACT), Ireland’s NIBRT Centre, and the NSF‑funded International Biomanufacturing Network.
Professor of Sustainable Biotechnology and Division Lead for Microbial and Microbiome Engineering
My group and I study how microorganisms can help solve real‑world challenges in sustainability, clean manufacturing and environmental protection. Our research spans synthetic biology, biosensors, cellular transport and metabolic control.
We focus on three main application areas:
- Creating genetic sensors that let engineered microbes detect signals, regulate their behaviour and communicate with one another.
- Developing streamlined, “all‑in‑one” bioprocesses that use sustainable, non‑food plant materials to produce valuable biological products.
- Equipping microbes with mobile DNA elements carrying pollutant‑breaking genes so they can clean up harmful human‑made chemicals.
We advance these areas by developing biological and process‑engineering approaches that harness the capabilities of living systems. Our work supports sustainable development through circular, low‑carbon production and waste models, and empowers biological systems to remediate environments contaminated with xenobiotics.
Chair of Sustainable Biomaterials
Our team takes inspiration from nature to design, discover and understand biomaterials that can advance health, biotechnology and sustainability. We are especially interested in how these materials recognise and interact with biological surfaces, including ice and the sugars that coat cells.
Our major projects include:
- Designing new materials that control how ice forms and grows, mimicking the remarkable properties of natural ice‑binding proteins.
- Creating chemical tools that improve how medicines, proteins and other sensitive biological materials are stored, transported and shared globally.
- Developing simple, rapid biosensors and diagnostics for detecting infections at the point of care.
- Engineering materials that can extract and stabilise membrane proteins – key targets for drug discovery.
- Building biotechnology tools that support cleaner, more sustainable industrial processes.
Together, this work helps solve real‑world challenges in healthcare, manufacturing and environmental sustainability by harnessing clever design principles found in nature.
Professor of Organic Chemistry and Division Lead for Enzyme Engineering and Industrial Biocatalysis
My team and I design and engineer enzymes to perform chemical reactions that don’t occur naturally. We custom design enzymes using computational models and directed evolution which allows us to transform molecules in novel ways. Our work has led to:
- New engineered biocatalysts to help manufacture global health therapies such as molnupiravir and lenacapavir, antivirals used for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 and HIV.
- Helping create enzymes that break down abundant plastics, such as PET, more effectively.
- Building new families of enzymes for valuable synthetic transformations that have no counterpart in nature.
- Developing photoenzymes powered by visible light that offer cheaper, cleaner routes to producing complex molecules.
By blending organic chemistry, computational design, and evolution in the lab, our engineered biocatalysts open the door to greener, more efficient and more selective manufacturing methods in industries like pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, plastics recycling and biofuels.
Professor of Biophysical Chemistry
My group and I study how the physical chemistry underlying biological processes shapes the way life works. We focus on how protein motions and quantum‑level effects influence enzyme catalysis, and how we can use proteins and enzymes as functional biomaterials and sensors.
To do this, we combine experimental and theoretical approaches, developing new instruments, methods and models that allow us to probe these systems in exceptional detail. Computational chemistry plays a key role in our work, helping us connect what we observe in the lab with the fundamental principles that explain it.
By uncovering how proteins behave and react at the most fundamental level, we aim to guide the design of new catalysts, sensors and biomaterials that can support advances in health, biotechnology and sustainable technologies.
Dean's Prize Research Fellow
Enzymes are nature’s catalysts, driving the chemical reactions that make life possible and powering today’s biotechnology revolution. Yet their complexity means we still have much to learn about how they work.
My group and I develop new high‑throughput, microfluidics‑based technologies to uncover how enzymes function at a fundamental level. By rapidly testing thousands of enzyme variants at once, we can reveal the rules that govern their activity and stability. This knowledge supports urgent challenges in human health and biotechnology, from improving enzyme‑based therapies to designing more efficient biocatalysts.
My research background spans the molecular mechanisms of polyubiquitin chain synthesis (University of Alberta) and the development of HT‑MEK (Stanford University) – a platform that enables deep functional profiling of over 1,000 enzymes in a single experiment.
Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw Fellow
My team and I develop bio-elctrochemical platforms that use electricity to power enzyme‑driven chemistry, enabling sustainable pharmaceutical biosynthesis, CO₂ incorporation into complex molecules, and highly sensitive electrochemical sensors for studying how drugs work.
We pack enzymes into a porous electrode and directly “wire” them to a key enzyme that exchanges electrons with the surface. This crowded, electrically connected environment mimics natural systems, allowing reaction intermediates to pass efficiently between enzymes. By adjusting the voltage, we can control the speed and direction of the chemistry and measure it in real time.
Our flagship system – the Electrochemical Leaf (e‑Leaf) – uses a photosynthetic enzyme to recycle nicotinamide cofactors and electrically drive multi‑step enzyme cascades. The e‑Leaf has already advanced drug‑mechanism studies and electro‑biosynthesis and we are now using it to probe how drugs affect liver metabolism.
We are also designing next‑generation platforms to access new chemical space, supporting sustainable synthesis, CO₂ reduction and advances in enzyme engineering and metabolic disease research.
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering and Associate Vice President for Enterprise
Our Polymers and Peptides group works at the interface of chemistry, biology and materials science. We study how peptides, proteins and polymers self‑assemble across different length scales, and use this understanding to design new materials with real‑world applications. Our research has been recognised by major scientific and engineering bodies, and we have a strong track record of translating discovery into impact through industrial partnerships and the creation of Manchester BIOGEL, with a second spin‑out, Molla Pharm, on the way.
Our current projects focus on:
- Designing hydrogel materials for tissue regeneration, timed drug delivery, biosensors, animal‑free drug discovery and the cultivation of cultured meat.
- Creating and characterising self‑assembling soft materials and elastomers made from nature’s building blocks for wound repair, biodegradable plastics and personal care products.
By understanding and controlling molecular self‑assembly, we aim to develop sustainable, clinically relevant materials that address key challenges in health and biotechnology.
Professor of Chemical Biology
My research focuses on using chemistry to understand and tackle problems involving important biological molecules. My group and I design and build these molecules – and new versions inspired by nature – to uncover how they work and how we can use them more effectively. A major aim of our work is to create improved building blocks for DNA and RNA, including non‑natural variants that could enable new technologies. We also study sugars: how they contribute to disease, and how we can harness them in industrial processes that make everyday products.
Most of our research involves making molecules using both chemical methods and enzymes, often supported by automated systems. Across all our projects, the common theme is working with sugar‑containing molecules to address challenges in infectious disease and to advance sustainable industrial biotechnology.
BBSRC Discovery Fellow
My team and I engineer proteins and peptides to create new biological functions, spanning catalysis, molecular recognition, and phase behaviour. We combine protein design with directed evolution to develop new enzymes and engineer liquid–liquid phase separating proteins, and identify functional peptides through de novo discovery. Aspects of our research include biocatalysis as well as genetic code expansion for accessing new chemical and functional space.
Specifically, we use ultra-high-throughput experimental technologies, including droplet-based microfluidics, display technologies, and selection systems, which allow us to efficiently explore the sequence space of peptides and proteins. By building biological function from first principles and refining it through iterative rounds of directed evolution, we aim to gain fundamental insight into protein sequence–structure–function relationships and develop robust tools for biotechnology and synthetic biology.
Professor of Molecular Materials
My research spans polymer and biopolymer biomaterials, with a focus on understanding how chemical structure, thermodynamics, and molecular organisation shape the properties of complex polymer systems. By uncovering these relationships, I aim to design new materials that can make a real difference in healthcare and biotechnology.
In 2014, I co‑founded Manchester BIOGEL, which developed advanced peptide‑based hydrogels (PeptiGels®) now used across the life‑science and biomedical sectors; the company was acquired by Cell Guidance Systems in 2023. I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2016, and in 2022 I joined the Division of Pharmacy and Optometry to help translate our biomaterial technologies from the lab to the clinic.
My work combines fundamental science, industrial collaboration and translational research to create new biomaterials with real‑world impact.
Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw Fellow in Biophysics
My lab develops human‑tailored microfluidic organ‑on‑chip platforms to study how microbes interact with the body and to identify functional disease signatures in complex biological environments. We focus on how microbial communities behave when exposed to physiologically relevant conditions – including flow, spatial organisation, oxygen and nutrient gradients, and host secretions – all of which strongly influence both microbial activity and human tissue responses.
Using gynaecological and other mucosal models (such as vaginal, fallopian tube, lung, gut and skin systems), we recreate key features of the in vivo environment that are lost in traditional static cultures. These platforms allow real‑time imaging alongside molecular and biochemical readouts, letting us link microbial composition and behaviour to specific host responses.
Our aim is to move beyond descriptive microbiome profiling toward mechanistic, predictive models that connect microbial interactions to measurable disease‑relevant outcomes. This provides new tools for disease modelling, therapeutic testing and translational research without relying on animal models.
CAMS Lecturer in Analytical Measurement Sciences
I am a biomedical scientist working at the intersection of analytical chemistry, metabolomics and data‑driven discovery. My research group and I focus on developing non‑invasive diagnostics for infectious and neurodegenerative diseases. This includes pioneering smell‑based metabolomics approaches for rapid tuberculosis detection and identifying biomarkers linked to Parkinson’s.
With a background in biomedical sciences and a PhD in metabolomics, I have contributed to global collaborations in counterfeit medicine detection, cancer research, tropical diseases and clinical and microbial metabolomics. My work was recognised with the Royal Society of Chemistry Horizon Prize in 2021. I also help train future analytical scientists through cross‑faculty teaching and serve as data analytics co‑chair for the Community for Analytical Measurement Science (CAMS).
I am also a co‑founder of Sebomix Ltd, which develops rapid diagnostic tests using skin secretions.
Professor of Synthetic Biology
My research focuses on harnessing biological systems to create useful and sustainable solutions for society. To achieve this, I reprogramme microorganisms, such as bacteria, so they can produce valuable chemicals, medicines and materials in cleaner and more efficient ways than traditional industrial processes.
My group studies how microbes naturally make complex compounds, and we redesign their internal pathways so they can produce these molecules at higher levels or generate entirely new ones. This work supports advances in drug development, green manufacturing and reducing our dependence on fossil‑fuel‑based chemistry.
I am committed to education, mentorship and collaboration, working closely with students, industry partners and researchers worldwide. Through this work, I aim to make biotechnology more powerful, sustainable and impactful, helping transform scientific discoveries into real‑world benefits.
Professor
I am a computational biologist developing methods to better understand – and predict – how proteins work. Proteins can be folded, unfolded, or a mixture of both, and this balance is strongly influenced by how polar and non‑polar amino acids interact along the chain. My group builds models that predict these interactions and how they shape protein behaviour.
Right now, we focus on pH and pH‑dependent effects. pH matters because many chemical groups in proteins bind hydrogen ions, changing charge and altering structure and function. With recent advances in AI‑based protein modelling and large‑scale ‘omics data on how cells respond to pH changes, we can now begin to predict how pH variations inside and outside cells influence protein behaviour.
This knowledge has important applications in biotechnology, such as improving protein production, and in biology, including understanding processes like cell adhesion.
Reader
My laboratory focuses on harnessing enzymes to support sustainable chemistry and advance new sensing technologies. We are particularly interested in enzymes that carry out oxidation reactions and those that act on silicon‑containing compounds. By uncovering the molecular mechanisms behind these reactions, we aim to engineer enzymes that can drive greener chemical synthesis and break down waste polymers more efficiently.
Alongside this, we develop enzyme‑based tools for detecting and studying genetically heritable diseases. These diagnostic approaches can offer faster, more precise ways to identify disease‑linked molecules.
Overall, my work uses the remarkable capabilities of enzymes to create cleaner manufacturing routes, support environmental sustainability and improve biomedical detection.
Get in touch with our team
Contact box text needed