Email: bioroboost@gmail.com
Facebook: BioRoboost
Twitter: @BioRoboost
Contact the leaders of each Work Package
WP1: Standards in biology, theory
development. Biological metrology
Geoff Baldwin
Prof. Baldwin is Professor of Synthetic & Molecular Biology at Imperial College London, he is Co-Director of the Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology and Director of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in BioDesign Engineering. He has spent his career at the interface of the physical and life sciences and has been working in synthetic biology since 2009. He has an active programme of research in DNA assembly, part characterisation, circuit design and implementation. These are being applied to in vivo approaches to directed evolution for the creation of new specificity and functionality for biosynthetic pathway optimisation and the development of integrated AI approaches for optimising within a biological design space.
WP2: Chassis in SB: theory, state of the art and development of a panel of standardised
biological frames
Victor de Lorenzo
Prof. Víctor de Lorenzo has a degree in Chemistry and a PhD in Biochemistry. He is a Research Professor in the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and is currently leader of the Laboratory of Environmental Molecular Microbiology at the National Center for Biotechnology (CNB). He specializes in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology of soil bacteria (particularly Pseudomonas putida) as agents for the decontamination of sites damaged by industrial waste. At present, his work explores the interface between the Synthetic Biology and Environmental Biotechnology.
WP3: Beyond bacteria: standards for yeast
and mammalian systems
Alistair Elfick
Dr. Alistair Elfick is Professor of Synthetic Biological Engineering, Head of the Institute for Bioengineering and Depute Director of the UK Centre for Mammalian Synthetic Biology, University of Edinburgh. Researching at the boundary of life and the inorganic, Alistair seeks to enable humankind to more sympathetically harness biology’s ability to sustainably manufacture. Alistair gained his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. After working as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California Berkeley, Alistair returned to his hometown of Edinburgh to take an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship at its eponymous University. He co-authored the Royal Academy of Engineering’s influential Inquiry on Synthetic Biology ’09 and the highly-regarded book Synthetic Aesthetics (MIT Press ’14, reprinted ‘17). He has contributed to evidence gathering to inform policy of both Scottish and UK governments, funding councils and regulatory bodies.
WP4: The social infrastructures of
standardisation
Pablo Schyfter
Dr. Pablo Schyfter is a Senior Lecturer at Science, Technology and Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He is trained and works in science and technology studies (STS), and carries out research in the sociology of knowledge, engineering studies, gender studies and the philosophies of technology and biology. He has carried out social scientific research on many different aspects of synthetic biology, including its design practices, its use of measurement and metrology, its production and use of knowledge, and its gender politics. As a member of multiple interdisciplinary projects, Dr. Schyfter has a record of collaborating with synthetic biologists.
WP5: Standards, ownership and reusability
Ana Delgado
Dr. Ana Delgado is Associate Professor at the TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture of the University of Oslo. Her research is concerned with the public dimensions of science and technology, combining resources from STS, Social Anthropology and Political Theory. Currently, Ana is focused on different forms of open science with a particular focus on practices of sharing and infrastructuring. This includes a critical approach to the bio-economy, and how innovation is produced not only in everyday research and market practices, but also in activism and grassroots engagements with technology.
WP6: Towards biosafety and risk assessment solutions
Markus Schmidt
Dr. Markus Schmidt is founder and CEO of BIOFACTION KG, a research, technology assessment and science communication company in Vienna, Austria. With an educational background in biomedical and electronic engineering, biology and environmental risk assessment he carries out environmental risk assessment and safety studies in a number of science and technology fields such as GM-crops, gene therapy, nanotechnology, xeno- and synthetic biology, neuro-technology, artificial intelligence and converging technologies.
WP7: Dissemination and Communication
Kristie Tanner
Dr. Kristie Tanner has a degree in Biochemistry and a PhD in Biotechnology by the University of Valencia. She currently works as R+D Project Manager at Darwin Bioprospecting Excellence S.L., a Spanish SME that focuses on microbial bioprospecting. In BioRoboost, DARWIN has focused on the dissemination and communication actions, aiming to engage several target audiences including the scientific community, the educational community, policy makers and the general public.
WP8: Management
Manuel Porcar
Dr. Manuel Porcar has a degree in Biology by the University of Valencia, and a PhD in agronomic engineering by the University of Navarra. He did a postdoc at Institut Pasteur (Paris, France), and is now a researcher at the Institute for Integrative Systems Biology (University of Valencia-CSIC, Spain), where he is head of the Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology group. He is the PI of the BioRoboost project, leading the management work package.