Research Associate in Synthetic Cells

This is an exciting new project in the area of Synthetic Cell Science where the researcher will develop new strategies for providing energy supplies for Synthetic Cells.

In this position you will utilise a bottom-up, molecular approach to the creation of biobattery technologies capable of producing chemical energy (ATP) from chemical feedstocks, as part of a JST-BBSRC funded Japan-UK SynERGY Consortium. SynERGY aims to develop a toolkit of energy generation, harvesting and storage technologies capable of building next-generation synthetic cells with long functional lifetimes capable for industry and medical translation. This position is a unique opportunity for researchers interested in contributing to the development of synthetic cell technologies as part of a large, international research team., focused around three interlinked research projects based at Imperial College London, the University of Cambridge and Institute of Science Tokyo.

In this project, you will be building on our recent advances in engineering soft materials interfacing ultrastable enzyme-containing biomaterials with hydrogel-based synthetic cells, collaborating with the Ueno laboratory at Institute of Science Tokyo. By constructing these materials at different length scales and reconstituting ATP producing enzyme cycles, here you will create a suite of biobattery technologies which can serve as energy producing organelles, or alternatively as full synthetic cells capable of sustained chemical energy generation. Such materials will serve as new biomolecular compartments for the generation of novel biotechnologies with long functional lifetimes and will be employed in cross-cutting SynERGY projects in collaboration with other project research teams based across London, Cambridge (UK) and Tokyo (Japan).