About

Synthetic biology is a rapidly growing discipline that builds on well-established principles of genetic engineering and biotechnology by integrating computational and engineering approaches to the design and construction of novel biological systems.

Three major challenges stand in the way of achieving a radical step-change in our ability to engineer complex multi-scaled biological systems:

  • Our detailed understanding of basic physiology, biochemistry and genetics, as well as that of the sub-cellular molecular machinery that mediates biological processes (e.g. transcription/translation factories, degradomes, divisomes, secretome etc.), is still limited, even for model organisms
  • The computational tools and approaches needed for the Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) of complex multi-scaled biological systems (and their constituent molecular machines) are still in their infancy
  • Due to rapid pace of the developments in synthetic biology, there is a disconnect in the training of cross-disciplinary scientists at all stages, being particularly acute at doctoral and postdoctoral levels

Centre for Synthetic Biology and Bioexploitation (CSBB)

The CSBB is based on world-class expertise across all Newcastle University's faculties - Medical Sciences, Science, Agriculture and Engineering and Humanities Arts and Social Sciences.  The centre has world-leading expertise in:

  • core synthetic biology disciplines (computing science, bioinformatics, Bio CAD/CAM, engineering, responsible innovation (ELSI, ELSA, etc.) and cell biology)
  • computational and model-based design of synthetic systems
  • development of synthetic bacterial systems

The CSBB draws on expertise from existing centers of excellence at Newcastle University:

  • The Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology (CBCB)
  • The Biopharmaceutical and Bioprocessing Centre (BBTC)
  • Newcastle Institute for Research on Sustainability (NIReS)
  • The Policy Ethics and Life Science Research Centre (PEALS)
  • The Centre for Integrated Systems Biology of Ageing and Nutrition (CISBAN)
  • The Digital Institute (Di)

Newcastle University is one of five UK universities in the Flowers Consortium that is developing a UK infrastructure for Synthetic Biology (funded by the EPSRC). Our centre also leads the UK networks on synthetic biology, SynBioNT and is heavily involved in standards development through the SynBioStandards network. These two UK-funded networks collect hundreds of national and international collaborators and constitute an invaluable pool of expertise.

Bioexploitation

The potential applications of synthetic biology are huge, varied and well recognised.  The CSBB also brings together leading academic experts in key areas for the commercial exploitation of synthetic biology. These areas include biofuels, bioremediation, biosensors and chemical process engineering.

The CSBB aims to build on our fundamental research into synthetic biology tools, methodologies and approachesby establishing a large network of industrial partners from North East England, the UK and internationally.