Out today in Nature Communications! Our work using artificial selection pressure to rapidly search libraries of millions of variants for useful biocatalysts with new or improved properties nature.com/articles/s4146… Uni of Nottingham #WeAreUoN Imperial College London Lara Sellés Vidal #synbio #meteng #engbio

We made a synthetic yeast chromsome! Ben Blount and I just posted a preprint biorxiv describing our contribution to Sc2.0: the 660kb SynXI chromosome. 1000s of synonmous mutations in coding genes caused no issues at all, unlike edits to non-coding DNA. 🧵 biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

After a decade of hacking away at the molecular coalface, we've finally completed and preprinted chromosome XI of the Sc2.0 yeast Sc2.0. We’ve been celebrating so much that even the chromosome has been throwing shapes... biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

About 10 years ago we had a crazy idea to put all the tRNA genes in the yeast genome onto a synthetic Neochromosome, and today we are able finally share with the world about this adventure. Manchester Institute of Biotechnology The University of Manchester

A synthetic bacterial genome has been upgraded for viral defence and biocontainment. Read this terrific N&V by Ben Blount to learn more go.nature.com/42hrFkg

I'm delighted to have written a Nature News & Views piece describing some great new work led by george church on modifying E. coli synthetic genome cells for improved biocontainment and resistance to phage infection nature.com/articles/d4158…

We’ve got a technical post open to join our team for a project mining natural and synthetic microbial diversity: jobs.ac.uk/job/DBX730/tec…

Happy Sc2.0 day. 10 new papers published today in Cell Genomics, Cell and Molecular Cell. Telling the story of 8 more completed chromosomes (including ours) and a tRNA neochromosome and bringing more than half the syn genome together into a single cell. cell.com/cell-genomics/…

It's Sc2.0 day! 10 new papers to check out in Cell, Molecular Cell, and Cell Genomics! Tom Ellis Jef Boeke Chantal SHEN Patrick Cai Ben Blount Matthew Chang plus all everyone involved!

Wow! A yeast cell with multiple synthetic chromosomes! A picture taken at NYU Langone Health. Read more about our story in Cell: cell.com/cell/fulltext/…

We were awarded a grant to use machine learning & synth biology to predict how to make successful synthetic genomes. We’ll use pangenomes to train ML models then make the predicted constructs BBSRC injects £12m into pioneering frontier bioscience research ukri.org/news/bbsrc-inj…

We finally finished our synthetic chromosome! Tom Ellis Glen Gowers I'm just going to collapse in this corner now... cell.com/cell-genomics/…

Scientists Ben Blount UoN Life Sciences & Tom Ellis @Imperialcollege are poised to create the most advanced “synthetic” organism ever made — a baker’s yeast that is controlled entirely by human-made genetic instructions. Read more The Times and The Sunday Times ▶️ ow.ly/hTEb50Q6nZ9

James McInerney Very exciting to have this Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research investment in our collaboration and novel approach applying AI/ML to Engineering Biology #EngBio #SynBio - our construction of large numbers of AI/ML-designed synthetic biological systems starts very soon!

Delighted our GlycoCell Engineering Biology Mission Hub has been funded by UK Research and Innovation Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Technology Missions Fund! So excited to apply Engineering Biology to unlock the applied potential of glycans for biomedicines and beyond ukri.org/news/new-100m-… nottingham.ac.uk/news/glycocell…

I’m delighted to be part of the GlycoCell UKRI Engineering Biology Hub. We’ll be using synthetic genomics to develop new therapeutics/diagnostics and enable microbes to make advanced biomedicines. My lab will be recruiting a postdoc and PhD student soon! ukri.org/news/new-100m-…

We're recruiting for 3 funded PhD studentships! Join the GlycoCell UKRI Engineering Biology Mission Hub & use Engineering Biology, glycobiology and Synthetic Genomics for microbial production of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics! Apply by 5th May via email #engbio #synbio