Together with the Royal Society of Chemistry, NESTA and three leading universities are designing a series of workshops for cross-departmental groups of researchers to develop ideas in synthetic biology.
This cutting-edge field brings engineering approaches to biology and has the potential to create radical innovations in areas such as healthcare and energy.
The workshops are designed to create stronger ties between different disciplines within the three participating institutions and create new cross-departmental projects.
We’ve identified interdisciplinary research as a significant source of innovative ideas, leading to new technologies in the long term.
But universities are still ill-equipped to work across disciplines due to structural, human and cultural factors. This project will help to break down these barriers.
Synthetic biology is a field with enormous scope and potential: it has the capacity to fundamentally change the way we approach medicine, energy generation and recycling.
However, this approach needs collaboration between engineering, biology, chemistry, physics and computer science. Which is why we’ve set up Connections in Synthetic Biology.