Biotechnology

Irene Rombel discusses how artificial intelligence and machine learning can address bottlenecks, quality issues, and production costs in cell, gene, and RNA therapy manufacturing. The seminar focuses on real-world process-development applications that improve reproducibility, speed, and cost effectiveness.

Ilaria Ferlenghi discusses a career spanning structural biology, cryo-electron microscopy, vaccine research and development, and the growing role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in scientific innovation and entrepreneurship.

NSF postdoctoral fellowships supporting early-career scientists who combine artificial intelligence with biological research and training to advance biotechnology innovation.

The fifth round supports small collaborative research and development projects through Defra's Farming Innovation Programme. A total competition budget of £13 million is available. The scheme is intended for business-led partnerships, including a grant-claiming UK SME. Applications close at 11:00 UK time on 14 October 2026.

Innovate UK supports pilot-scale development and validation of laboratory-proven engineering biology innovations. Projects must include access to UK scale-up facilities and address health, food and agriculture, chemicals and materials, low-carbon fuels, waste and environment, or enabling technologies. UK SMEs must lead; eligible partners include universities and research organisations. Total project costs must be GBP 200,000–750,000, with projects lasting up to 24 months. These are project-cost limits, not grant-award amounts. The competition opened on 7 September and closes on 21 October 2026 at 11:00 UK time.

This business-led collaborative research and development competition will fund new engineering-biology products, processes and services and de-risk technologies with strong market potential. Projects may address health, agriculture and food, chemicals and materials, low-carbon fuels, waste and environment, or cross-cutting technology and service development. The central innovation must purposefully engineer biological systems and may involve biosensors, biomanufacturing, synthetic-biology platforms, gene editing, AI or computational biology. Projects must have total eligible costs of £750,000 to £2.5 million, last 12 to 36 months and begin no earlier than 1 April 2027. The open competition closes on 3 November 2026 at 11:00am UK time.

Jennifer Brophy presents two methods for programming when and where genes are expressed in plants and their associated microbes. One creates a chemical signal using the noncanonical amino acid O-methyl-L-tyrosine. Engineered Arabidopsis, tomato and poplar produce the signal, while engineered Bacillus subtilis and soil bacteria respond by activating gene expression. Restricting signal production to selected plant tissues allows local control of microbial activity. The second approach builds a genetic circuit that counts successive branching events in roots. It produces different expression patterns at different branch orders, helping researchers distinguish the contributions of roots that otherwise have similar molecular identities. Together, the approaches support experiments on plant development and the engineering of plant–microbe partnerships.

This business-led collaborative research and development competition will fund new engineering-biology products, processes and services and de-risk technologies with strong market potential. Projects may address health, agriculture and food, chemicals and materials, low-carbon fuels, waste and environment, or cross-cutting technology and service development. The central innovation must purposefully engineer biological systems and may involve biosensors, biomanufacturing, synthetic-biology platforms, gene editing, AI or computational biology. Projects must have total eligible costs of £750,000 to £2.5 million, last 12 to 36 months and begin no earlier than 1 April 2027. The open competition closes on 3 November 2026 at 11:00am UK time.