David Leys
David is a Professor of Structural Biology and lead principal investigator of the SuCCEED prosperity partnership.
David has been studying structure-function relationships of enzymes, especially cofactor dependent system since his PhD. His work has included elucidation of novel mechanisms of interprotein electron transfer, substrate channelling strategies, atomic insight into enzymatic H-tunnelling reactions, the molecular basis of organohalide respiration and discovery of a novel cofactor prFMN. These fundamental research insights are used to guide application in development of sustainable biocatalytic routes or bioremediation processes.
He has been awarded a Wolfson Merit Award (2016), the 2015 Wain Medal, RSC Rita and John Cornforth Prize (2009), EMBO Young Investigator (2004); Royal Society University Research Fellowship (2003) as well as prestigious ERC grants in 2008 and 2015.
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Anthony Green
Anthony is a Professor of Organic & Biological Chemistry and Director of the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology.
Anthony’s research team specializes in the design and evolution of enzymes with new catalytic functions. His lab has pioneered methods to build enzymes from an expanded alphabet of amino acids. Using these techniques, entirely new modes of catalysis can now be programmed into enzymes. Beyond fundamental research, Anthony works in partnership with global companies and philanthropic foundations to develop catalytic technologies to address societal needs. Recent examples include the development of engineered enzymes to efficiently deconstruct plastics, and the development of a biocatalytic routes to global health drugs. Anthony is Director of the International Centre for Enzyme Design and the CoEBio3 Centre of Excellence in Biocatalysis.
Anthony’s research has been recognized by the award of the RSC Harrison-Meldola Prize (2020), FSE Researcher of the Year (2024), ERC Starter (2018) & Consolidator (2023) Grants and a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship (2016). He was recently named the 2024 UK Blavatnik Laureate in Chemistry.
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Jesús Esteban Serrano
Jesús is a Lecturer in Chemical Engineering at The University of Manchester in July 2020.
His research interests revolve around the themes of Chemical Reaction Engineering, Green Chemistry and Process Intensification, with projects aiming at a cleaner and more sustainable production and separation of value-added chemicals from renewable substrates. Some examples include the production of (bio)fuel additives and other chemicals starting from substrates like glycerol (by-product of biodiesel) or lignocellulosic sugars, where the focus of his studies lie on reaction kinetics, phase equilibria and green solvent selection.
His efforts have been acknowledged with the Green Talents Award of the German Ministry of Education and Research (2016), the Excellence Award in Chemical Reaction Engineering of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (2018), the CAS Future Leaders Prize (2018) and the Hermann Neuhaus Prize of the Max Planck Society (2020), among others.
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Vincenzo Spallina
Vincenzo is a Reader in the Department of Chemical Engineering
His research combines experimental activity, modelling and technology assessment for low-carbon energy, biofuels and CCUS ans he is leading the Sustainable PRocess INtensification Group (SPRING).
He has been awarded as personal share over £6M as PI or Co-I for different funding sources including industry, UKRI, EU Commission and the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.
He is currently the project coordinator and PI of an EU-H2020 project on negative emissions aviation biofuels (H2020 GLAMOUR), PI of an EPSRC project (EP/S030654/1) and project coordinator of the DESNZ-funded project Phase II for the Hydrogen Supply Competition 2 (£ 5.1m), Co-I in an H2020 project (H2020 C4U), EPSRC (EP/V026089/1)
He has published 60+ academic papers (Citations: 1560+; h-index: 24).
At the University of Manchester, he is also the academic lead of the Sustainable Hub for industrial Engineering aiming at scale up new technologies to TRL5/6 level and He is the James Chadwick Building Academic Lead.
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Michael Turner
Mike is a Professor of Materials Chemistry and Director of the Organic Materials Innovation Centre (OMIC) within the Department of Chemistry. Mike is principal investigator for the Knowledge Centre for Materials Chemistry at The University of Manchester, a virtual centre of expertise providing multi-disciplinary research and innovative knowledge transfer based on world class capabilities in applied materials chemistry.
His research covers a broad range of functional organic materials and encompass the synthesis, optimisation and development of these materials for new applications in industry. Key areas of interest are the synthesis of novel monomers and polymers, materials for electronics, and the conversion of bio-derived feedstocks to sustainable aviation fuels. He is the co-founder of Chromition Ltd and has recently worked extensively with C3Biotechnology Ltd. to deliver a chemical process at scale (>10L) to produce sustainable aviation fuel from bio-derived feedstocks.
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Neil Dixon
Our research interests span synthetic biology, biosensors, cellular transport, and metabolic control. We are currently exploring a number of applied research areas including; i) the development and application of genetically encoded biosensors, for sensing, control and communication within and between engineered microbial strains, ii) development of consolidated bioprocesses and use of alternative non-energy crop feedstocks for bioproduction, and the iii) use of mobile genetic elements with catabolic payloads for bioremediation of xenobiotics.
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Nigel Scrutton
Nigel is a Professor of Enzymology and Biophysical Chemistry at the University of Manchester and Director of the UK Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub funded by EPSRC/BBSRC. He is internationally recognised as a leader in the fields of enzyme engineering, structure and mechanisms, and biomanufacturing using synthetic biology and biocatalytic approaches.
He has held key managerial positions such as the Director of the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB) and PI/Director of the Synthetic Biology Research Centre for fine and speciality chemicals production SYNBIOCHEM. Nigel co-founded C3 Biotechnologies Ltd, which is engineering biology and innovating biomanufacturing technologies to commercialise chemicals/fuels production.
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James Winterburn
James is a Reader in Chemical Engineering with a research focus on developing scalable, efficient manufacturing methods for a range of biobased chemicals via a bioprocessing and biochemical engineering route. He previously commercialised patented biosurfactant production and separation technology via Holiferm, spun out from the Winterburn Research Group in 2018.
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Rosa Cuéllar-Franca
Dr Rosa M. Cuéllar-Franca is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Manchester. Her research focuses on the sustainability assessment of novel technologies for climate change mitigation on a life cycle basis, providing quantitative evidence that enables targeted improvements at various system levels, such as molecular and process design, process operation, and policy making.
Her work has centred around developing more environmentally sustainable ionic liquids, catalysts, bio-based chemicals and nanomaterials for cleaner technology development.
She is an expert in life cycle assessment (LCA), carbon footprinting, and life cycle costing. She is author of over 30 peer-reviewed papers and her recent article on ionic liquids “A life cycle approach to solvent design: Challenges and opportunities for ionic liquids – application to CO2 capture” has won the Reaction Chemistry & Engineering 2021 Outstanding Early Career Paper Award in recognition of her potential to influence future directions in the field.
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Research team
Karl Payne
Karl is responsible for the administration and management of the SuCCEED partnership. Prior to this current role, Karl was a laboratory based researcher with 20 years experience in academia and the biotech industry. His fields of research were Synthetic Biology, Biocatalysis and Extremophilic Enzymes.
Lea Gourbeyre
Ross Smithson
Ross is a research associate focusing on protein engineering within the SuCCEED partnership, specifically utilising directed evolution to optimise natural enzymes for the production of valuable chemicals. Prior to this role, Ross completed his PhD at the University of Manchester under the supervision of Prof. Anthony Green, where he gained broad experience across a range of engineering projects, including enzymatic plastic degradation and photoenzymatic catalysis.
Micaela Chacón
Micaela is the research associate responsible for developing genetically encoded biosensing tools to aide strain and enzyme engineering. Prior to this role, she held associate positions at the Universities of Manchester, Leeds, and Bath where she worked in microbial metabolic engineering and synthetic biology.
Robin Hoeven
Robin is a technical specialist in Bioprocessing and lab manager for the Biochemical Engineering labs.
Marina Golovanova