Synthetic Biology Doctoral Training Programme

The University of Nottingham has a strong track record in microbial synthetic biology. In 2014 it was awarded research funding of over £14m by BBSRC and EPSRC to further strengthen this area, to develop technologies and carry out fundamental and applied research on anaerobic and aerobic bacteria utilising waste gases including CO, CO2 and H2. A core aim of the SBRC is to generate new knowledge in a coherent, multi-disciplinary environment that ultimately leads to optimisation of production processes to generate sustainable chemicals or biofuels from microbial systems. The SBRC has a wealth of dedicated new equipment, bespoke facilities and many existing international research and industry connections.

The SBRC's ambition is to combine expertise from a variety of disciplines including sustainable chemistry, biology and computational sciences to create optimised microbial chassis for the sustainable production of chemicals and fuels.  Its aim is to replace petrochemical derived commodity compounds, utilise waste GHG, alleviate climate change and facilitate wealth creation through the emerging waste economy.

As the SBRC develops, its research interests will broaden to encompass other aspects and areas of synthetic biology. The vision of the SynBio DTProg is to develop independent, well-trained, highly-employable scientists in strategically-important research areas of synthetic biology.

The SBRC has very strong links to the emerging synthetic biology industry and with a wide range of established companies who are developing interests in synthetic biology. These linkages provide the SynBio DTProg with excellent placement opportunity choices for its PhD students.  

Current PhD Projects                                                                                                                            

For other PhD programmes associated with the Synthetic Biology Research Centre visit: