Engineering Biology

A generic image of SDS-PAGE equipment Engineering Biology is an emerging field in the UK and international scientific community. Current research projects include a number of international collaborations.

IMProGlyco is a European Innovation Council-funded project led by Professor Webb which brings together a consortium from the University of Leeds, the University of York, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo University Hospital, BOKU (Vienna), GlycoSeLect and CPI. In this project, we seeking to develop a new strategy to make therapeutic cells and proteins with designer glycoforms.
ACROPATH is a MRC/AMED-funded network linking researchers at the University of Leeds and RIKEN & JAMSTEC in Japan. In this project, we are seeking to develop a new class of artificial cells to report on bacterial infections.

These projects build on our long-established strengths in protein engineering which we have developed over the last 20 years.

Recent publications in this area

Quantitative N- or C-Terminal Protein Labelling with Unactivated Peptides by Use of Sortases and a D-Aminopeptidase Zoe L.P. Arnott, Holly E. Morgan, Kristian Hollingsworth, Charlotte M. E. Stevenson, Lawrence J. Collins, Alexandra Tamasanu, Darren C. Machin, Jonathan P. Dolan, Tomasz P. Kaminski, Gemma C. Wildsmith, Daniel J. Williamson, Isabelle B. Pickles, Stuart L. Warriner, W. Bruce Turnbull and Michael E. Webb Angew. Chem. Int Ed. (2024) 63, e202310862

Membrane fusion mediated by non-covalent binding of re-engineered cholera toxin assemblies to glycolipids Sarah Wehrum, Lina Siukstaite, Daniel J Williamson, Thomas R Branson, Taras Sych, Josef Madl, Gemma C Wildsmith, Wenyue Dai, Erik Kempmann, James F Ross, Maren Thomsen, Michael E Webb, Winfried Römer, W Bruce Turnbull ACS Syn. Biol. (2022) 11, 3929-3938