SynBio and Evolution lab at Imperial College London

09/03/2026

We believe that as scientists, asking ourselves if our direction of travel is the right one is the responsible thing to do. This is why I'm really pleased to share this article summarising our reflections on the current state of biobased approaches to manage plastic waste.

This is the result of our RRI work brilliantly summarised by Joanne Benton with the support of Catalina Cruanas Paniker and Brooke Wain after endless discussions with stakeholders and the general public as part of our BBSRC sponsored projects MIPLACE and P3EB.

Bio-based approaches to plastic degradation have been an intense area of research in recent years, and although they show great promise, they also raise societal, ethical and regulatory questions. Here the authors reflect on the Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) implications of this growing....

16/02/2026

PhD opportunity alert!! 🚨🚨🚨

We are recruiting a PhD student (home fees) to work on an exciting project to create new nylon-like materials. For info on how to apply please check the call here:

The School of Convergence Science at Imperial College London is inviting applications for fully funded PhD studentships on research projects that sup...

27/01/2026

And this is a perspective piece reviewing the current status of microplastic break down with microorganisms. Still a long and arduous road ahead for this technology to work at a scale.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095816692600008X

27/01/2026

We are really pleased to share some of our recent publications. Here is a paper describing a new bacterium able to efficiently use the ethylene glycol resulting from PET hydrolysis for its conversion in to biomass and molecules with added value. These are the results obtained by Javier Molpeceres-Garcia who visited us for three months as part of an EMBO sponsored internship.

07/04/2025

Here is the final version of the ARTE channel news clip discussing microplastics pollution and our work engineering microorganisms to remove them!

Le 10 mars 2025, un porte-conteneur est entré en collision avec un pétrolier en mer du Nord, au large de l’Angleterre, provoquant un gigantesque incendie des bateaux. Dans un premier temps, les autorités britanniques ont écarté le risque de catastrophe environnementale, affirmant qu’aucun s...

28/03/2025

We had a lovely afternoon yesterday with journalists Lucie Barbazanges and Adèle Prugnaud from the French-German TV channel ARTE talking about our work tackling microplastics pollution. Harry is a natural on camera!!
Imperial College London

11/01/2025

It's been a while but we are back! Happily sharing our first preprint of 2025! An amazing work led by Harman Mehta in collaboration with Rodrigo Ledesma and Guy Bart-Stan also at Imperial College London. Harman showed that microbial biosynthetic pathways can perform better when split between different strains in a really nice example of engineered labour division. Check it out here:

With advancements in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, microorganisms can now be engineered to perform increasingly complex functions, which may be limited by the resources available in individual cells. Division of labour in synthetic microbial communities offers a promising approach to....

21/04/2022

Hiya! Want to see something cool? Have a look at our latest video describing our efforts in the MIPLACE project for plastic recycling with biology. Check how quickly enzymes can dissolve PET trays! The video is part of a competition so, if you like it, don't forget to give a thumbs up on youtube!

1st category (ERA CoBioTech research projects)Authors of the video: Joanne Benton, Alice Banks, the ERA CoBioTech MIPLACE project team

03/06/2021

We are hiring!! We have a 3-year long position available for a postdoctoral researcher under our brand new project SECRETed. Our lab will be part of a European consortium developing bacterial platforms for the biosynthesis of novel surfactants and siderophores based on pathways identified in marine microorganisms. Our contribution will involve the use of automated pipelines for the combinatiorial assembly and expression of recombinant pathways in different microbial hosts. For info on how to apply check:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/jobs/career-programmes/phd-vacancies/

03/04/2021

Need something to read during the break? We are really proud to share our latest work!! This is a preprint describing Juhyun's work investigating tradeoffs between growth and gene expression in collaboration with our colleagues Alex Darlington and Declan Bates at the University of Warwick. We have identified easy-to-implement tricks to maximise protein production in bacteria such as culturing organisms slowly in a good carbon source. Congrats Juhyun!!

The gene expression capacity of bacterial cells depends on the interplay between growth and the availability of the transcriptional and translational machinery. Growth rate is widely accepted as the global physiological parameter controlling the allocation of cell resources. This allocation has an i...