Engineering biology for a sustainable world

As we look for ways to protect our environment and support the health of billions across the globe, we turn to nature’s own processes to provide the answers.

Biotechnology is enabling us to find new and more sustainable ways to produce chemicals, materials, and everyday products, by understanding and harnessing biological processes and applying them at industrial scales.

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New research to reveal hidden microbial impact on CO2 storage

A new research project led by scientists at The University of Manchester in collaboration with global energy company Equinor ASA will unlock crucial insights into how microbes in deep underground storage sites could impact the success of carbon capture and storage (CCS).

New mass-spectrometry technique boosts enzyme screening speed by up to 1000 times

Scientists have developed  a new technique to screen engineered enzyme reactions, which could lead to faster and more efficient creation of medicines and sustainable chemicals.

The University of Manchester partners in £8.2 million initiative to accelerate diagnostic innovation

The project, led by the University of Kent, and including The University of Manchester, and University College London (UCL), will address the development gap in the diagnostics innovation ecosystem.Accelerating Innovation in DiagnosticsDiagnostics play a vital role in healthcare, informing approximately 70% of clinical decisions. From detecting diseases to enabling precision medicine, diagnostics have the potential to save lives, reduce healthcare costs, and improve global health outcomes. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of rapid diagnostic innovation, showcasing how timely diagnostics can mitigate public health crises and support economic resilience.However, over 80% of UK companies developing diagnostics are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which often face significant barriers in accessing the technical expertise, resources, and infrastructure needed to bring new products to market. CADDA seeks to address these challenges by fostering a collaborative, multidisciplinary environment that bridges academia, industry, the NHS, and regulatory bodies.A National Effort with Global ImpactThe CADDA initiative will harness the strengths of leading institutions in the North and South of England to ensure benefits are distributed across the UK. By providing SMEs with access to essential knowledge, infrastructure, and resources, CADDA will help overcome the fragmentation in the diagnostics sector that often delays innovation and increases costs.Key stakeholders, including national and local NHS trusts, will be integrated into every aspect of the project to ensure that new diagnostic tools are clinically relevant, ethically sound, and compliant with regulatory standards. This coordinated approach will deliver diagnostics that meet the highest quality standards while addressing urgent healthcare needs.Broader Benefits for Society and the EconomyIn addition to advancing healthcare, CADDA will enhance animal health, strengthen biosecurity, and drive economic benefits for the UK. By enabling SMEs to overcome barriers to innovation, CADDA will support regional growth and position the UK as a global leader in diagnostic development.Professor Mark Smales, from the University of Kent and co-Director of CADDA, highlighted the initiative’s transformative potential: “Through coalescing and harnessing the breadth of world class expertise in the UK across universities and research institutes, industry, SMEs, clinicians/end users, regulators and investors, we will be able to bring high quality innovative diagnostics faster to market; our medical community will be able to diagnose medical issues and save lives; and animal health and security will be enhanced. This will collectively provide wider societal and economic benefits to the UK.”Professor Kathy Kotiadis, also from the University of Kent and co-Director of CADDA, added: “We are excited to support the business development needs of the diagnostics sector. SMEs often face significant barriers to expansion due to limited access to expertise and information, hindering their ability to introduce new diagnostics to the market, a gap CADDA will fill.”

Innovative enzyme breakthrough could transform drug and chemical manufacturing

Published today (15 January 2025) in Nature, this breakthrough centres on a process called nucleophilic aromatic substitution (SNAr), a class of transformation that is widely used across the chemical industries including pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. This enzymatic process offers a greener, more efficient alternative to traditional chemical synthesis.Catalysing chemistrySNAr reactions are crucial in manufacturing many valuable products such as medicines and agrochemicals. However, conventional methods for carrying out these reactions come with major challenges. They often require harsh conditions like high temperatures and environmentally harmful solvents. Established methods of performing SNAr chemistry often produce compounds as isomeric – two or more compounds that have the same chemical formula but different arrangements of the atoms – mixtures, necessitating the use of expensive and time-consuming purification steps. To overcome these hurdles, a team of researchers, led by Professor Anthony Green and Professor Igor Larrosa, have used directed evolution to develop a new enzyme capable of catalysing SNAr processes. This new enzyme, named SNAr1.3, performs a range of SNAr reactions with high efficiency and selectivity under mild reaction conditions. Unlike traditional chemical methods, this enzyme operates in water-based solutions at moderate temperatures, reducing the environmental impact and energy required.How It WorksAs there is no known natural enzyme that could catalyse SNAr reactions, the team initially discovered that an enzyme previously developed in their laboratory for a different chemical transformation could also perform SNAr chemistry, albeit with modest efficiency and selectivity. By using automated directed evolution, the researchers were able to further engineer this enzyme to have the desired characteristics. The team evaluated over 4,000 clones before identifying an enzyme SNAr1.3 that contains six mutations and is 160-fold more active than the parent enzyme. This enzyme efficiently promotes a wide variety of SNAr processes and can generate target products in a single mirror-image form, which is crucial for applications in the pharmaceutical sector.The Benefits of SNAr1.3SNAr1.3 has a number of features that make it an attractive option for chemical production:Efficiency: the enzyme can perform over 4,000 reaction cycles without losing effectiveness, making it highly productive.Precision: it creates molecules in a single mirror-image form, which is critical for the safety and effectiveness of medicines.Versatility: SNAr1.3 works with a wide range of chemical building blocks, enabling the creation of complex structures like quaternary carbon centres—a common feature in advanced drugs.Sustainability: operating under mild, water-based conditions, the enzyme reduces the need for harmful chemicals and energy-intensive processes, making it an environmentally friendly alternative.The team’s work also sheds light on the enzyme’s inner workings. Using advanced analytic techniques, they uncovered how SNAr1.3’s unique structure allows it to bind and position chemicals precisely, enabling its exceptional performance. These insights provide a blueprint for designing even more powerful enzymes in the future.A Greener Future for IndustryThe development of SNAr1.3 highlights the potential of biocatalysis and provides a template for future development. As the world moves towards net zero, and industry is looking for ways to improve efficiency and reduce their environmental impact, biotechnology could be the answer to these pressing challenges.“This is a landmark achievement in biocatalysis,” said Igor Larrosa, Professor and Chair in Organic Chemistry at The University of Manchester. “It demonstrates how we can harness and even improve on nature’s tools to address some of the toughest challenges in modern chemistry.”What’s Next?While SNAr1.3 is already showing immense promise, the researchers believe this is just the beginning. With further refinement, the enzyme could be adapted for even more complex reactions, making it a valuable tool in drug development, agricultural chemicals, and materials science.“The possibilities are just starting to emerge,” said Anthony. “By combining modern protein design with high-throughput testing, we’re optimistic about creating a new generation of enzymes that can revolutionise SNAr chemistry.”This groundbreaking research offers a glimpse into a future where manufacturing essential products is cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient. For industries looking to reduce their environmental impact while maintaining high standards of quality, SNAr1.3 represents a promising solution.

Breakthrough research unlocks potential for renewable plastics from carbon dioxide

Their work, published in Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts, could accelerate the development of sustainable alternatives to fossil fuel-derived products like plastics, helping pave the way for a carbon-neutral circular bioeconomy.The research, led by Dr Matthew Faulkner, working alongside Dr Fraser Andrews, and Professor Nigel Scrutton, focused on improving the production of citramalate, a compound that serves as a precursor for renewable plastics such as Perspex or Plexiglas. Using an innovative approach called “design of experiment,” the team achieved a remarkable 23-fold increase in citramalate production by optimising key process parameters.Why Cyanobacteria?Cyanobacteria are microscopic organisms capable of photosynthesis, converting sunlight and CO2 into organic compounds. They are a promising candidate for industrial applications because they can transform CO2—a major greenhouse gas—into valuable products without relying on traditional agricultural resources like sugar or corn. However, until now, the slow growth and limited efficiency of these organisms have posed challenges for large-scale industrial use.“Our research addresses one of the key bottlenecks in using cyanobacteria for sustainable manufacturing,” explains Matthew. “By optimising how these organisms convert carbon into useful products, we’ve taken an important step toward making this technology commercially viable.”The Science Behind the BreakthroughThe team’s research centred on Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, a well-studied strain of cyanobacteria. Citramalate, the focus of their study, is produced in a single enzymatic step using two key metabolites: pyruvate and acetyl-CoA. By fine-tuning process parameters such as light intensity, CO2 concentration, and nutrient availability, the researchers were able to significantly boost citramalate production.Initial experiments yielded only small amounts of citramalate, but the design of experiment approach allowed the team to systematically explore the interplay between multiple factors. As a result, they increased citramalate production to 6.35 grams per litre (g/L) in 2-litre photobioreactors, with a productivity rate of 1.59 g/L/day.While productivity slightly decreased when scaling up to 5-litre reactors due to light delivery challenges, the study demonstrates that such adjustments are manageable in biotechnology scale-up processes.A Circular Bioeconomy VisionThe implications of this research extend beyond plastics. Pyruvate and acetyl-CoA, the key metabolites involved in citramalate production, are also precursors to many other biotechnologically significant compounds. The optimisation techniques demonstrated in this study could therefore be applied to produce a variety of materials, from biofuels to pharmaceuticals.By enhancing the efficiency of carbon capture and utilisation, the research contributes to global efforts to mitigate climate change and reduce dependence on non-renewable resources.“This work underscores the importance of a circular bioeconomy,” adds Matthew. “By turning CO2 into something valuable, we’re not just reducing emissions—we’re creating a sustainable cycle where carbon becomes the building block for the products we use every day.”What’s Next?The team plans to further refine their methods and explore ways to scale up production while maintaining efficiency. They are also investigating how their approach can be adapted to optimise other metabolic pathways in cyanobacteria, with the aim of expanding the range of bio-based products that can be sustainably manufactured.This research is the latest development from the Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub (FBRH) and was completed in collaboration with the FlexBio scale-up facility at Heriot-Watt University.

Leading scientists call for global conversation about mirror bacteria

A group of leading international scientists is calling for a global conversation about the potential creation of "mirror bacteria"—a hypothetical form of life with biological molecules that are the mirror images of those found in nature.

University receives major investment to support next generation of bioscience researchers

The Faculty of Biology Medicine and Health at The University of Manchester has been awarded a major new Doctoral Landscape Award from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to fund PhD training in the biosciences.

Enzyme engineering has the potential to drive green, more efficient drug manufacturing

Researchers have found a new way to use biocatalysis to improve the production of critical raw materials required for essential drugs, making the process quicker, more efficient, and environmentally friendly.

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