Synthetic Biophysical Systems Group

Welcome! We are a new research group at The University of Edinburgh. Led by Dr Nadanai Laohakunakorn, our vision is to master the use of cell-free synthetic biology to enable a wide variety of applications in biomanufacturing, biosensing, and healthcare.

Harnessing these simplified mimics of living cells gives us a unique approach to understanding life, by building it up from its most basic components.

Please check back regularly for updates!

CF
Photo: Z. Swank

News

  • 12 November 2024 » We are hiring! We are looking for an exceptionally motivated and talented postdoctoral researcher to join our team, initially for one year (March 2025-March 2026). They will work on the bottom-up and rational enhancement of PURE using protein enhancers and synthetic metabolism. Please get in touch for more information if you are interested, view the advert here, and apply before 6 January 2025.

  • 9 September 2024 » Surendra's preprint is now out on Biorxiv! Please find it here: ATP regeneration from pyruvate in the PURE system. Many congratulations for the stellar work throughout his PhD.

  • 24 August 2024 » Our review paper on Applications of cell free protein synthesis in protein design is now published. Congratulations to Ella, Sara, and Michael who have contributed to this, and collaborators Chris W. Wood and Lynne Regan who led the study.

  • 13 May 2024 » We welcome Sanika to the lab to start her MSc project with us, on investigating alternative ATP regeneration pathways in PURE, and at the same time say goodbye to Ryan who goes back to Toronto, and Paula who has finished her degree.

  • 18 Apr 2024 » Congratulations to Surendra who just presented his PhD work at the SynCell 2024 conference in Toulouse, France.

  • 14 Apr 2024 » Michael's preprint on applying machine learning to study physiochemical properties of natural and engineered proteins is now out on bioRxiv. A great collaboration with the Oyarzún and Wells Wood groups!

  • 15 Jan 2024 » We welcome Ryan Lee, visiting PhD student from the Chou lab in Toronto, and Paula Juve, undergraduate honours student, who are both starting their projects in the lab today.

  • 23 Aug 2023 » Nadanai has just returned from the BioGate competition, impressively hosted by students at the Istanbul Technical University.

  • 21 Aug 2023 » Big congratulations to Junming and Matthew for finishing their MSc and Hons projects respectively. We enjoyed working with them and wish them all the best for their future careers.

  • 29 May 2023 » Another warm welcome to Matthew Hardcastle, who will join the lab to work on acid-stressed cell-free systems for his honours project.

  • 1 May 2023 » We welcome Junming Li to start her MSc in our lab, continuing on Dev's excellent work involving encapsulated enzymes in cell-free systems.

  • 22 April 2023 » We had fine weather for our group hike at the Hermitage in Dunkeld:

    • social

  • 21 March 2023 » Nadanai gives a talk at the Engineering Life conference at MIAPbP in Munich. It was a very interesting workshop, with plenty of discussions about the big questions in synthetic biology!

  • 16 January 2023 » We welcome Dev Vaidya to our lab to begin an honours project investigating cell-free enzyme encapsulation, as well as Aarushi Ruhela, a PhD student co-supervised with Jamie Marland in the School of Engineering, who will study electronic interfaces to cell-free reactions.

  • 3 October 2022 » At the start of a new academic year, we say goodbye to Paula after a very successful summer project. We welcome Christoph Wagner, a new PhD student co-supervised with Andrea Weisse's group, who will be working on regenerating cell-free systems. And we congratulate Sahan on publishing his paper on phage engineering in cell-free. Lots of good news all around!

  • 7 July 2022 » Congratulations to Sarah who has published a paper, in collaboration with Ella Thornton, Zoe Gidden, Mathew Horrocks, and Lynne Regan, on a new surface immobilisation technique for cell-free synthesised proteins. Read it here!