The ERC Starting Grant is one of Europe's most competitive and prestigious funding schemes, supporting outstanding early-career researchers pursuing ambitious, high-risk, high-gain research.

Custom-made materials that behave like biological molecules

Metal-peptide frameworks are microscopic structures formed when short peptides connect to metal ions and assemble into an ordered network. By changing the peptide building blocks or the metals used, researchers could create materials with tailored properties, from speeding up chemical reactions to conducting electricity.

While metal-peptide frameworks have shown promise as highly versatile materials, discovering new frameworks currently relies on slow and laborious chemical synthesis.

To address this, the project will harness a specially engineered bacterial strain with an expanded genetic code that allows the incorporation of non-canonical amino acids, molecular building blocks not found naturally in living organisms. By programming cells to produce diverse libraries of metal-binding peptides, the team aims to accelerate the discovery of entirely new materials that can self-assemble and be optimised through directed evolution.

The research could open up new possibilities for designing biological materials that combine the sophisticated functions of proteins with the scalability and accessibility of synthetic materials. In the longer term, these materials could be engineered to act as sustainable biocatalysts, conductive biological components or multifunctional biomaterials with applications across biotechnology and green manufacturing.

The project builds upon Martin’s previous work in synthetic genomics and genetic code expansion, an area of synthetic biology that enables researchers to introduce new chemical building blocks into living organisms. His previous research has helped expand the range of molecules that can be genetically encoded.

By combining these capabilities with materials science, the ERC-funded research aims to establish metal-peptide frameworks as an entirely new class of evolvable biomaterials. Researchers hope that understanding how these structures form and function could eventually enable the development of materials capable of coupling renewable energy sources with biological processes, contributing to future sustainable technologies and a circular bioeconomy.

Fighting antimicrobial resistance

Dr Will Smith has been awarded a University Research Fellowship to investigate how microbes deploy and evolve multiple weapons during competition with one another. His project, the evolution of multi-weapon fighting in microbes, will combine computational modelling, laboratory experiments and large-scale genomic analysis to reveal the rules governing microbial conflict.

Although antibiotics have transformed modern medicine, they represent just one example of the sophisticated weaponry that microbes use against their rivals. Bacteria can inject toxins directly into neighbouring cells using microscopic harpoons, fire toxic protein weapons, or deploy virus-derived nanomachines capable of destroying competitors from a distance.

Scientists have made major advances in understanding how many of these weapons work at the molecular level. However, a fundamental mystery remains: why do bacteria invest in multiple weapons rather than relying on just one? Will’s research aims to answer that question.

Choosing the most effective defence

Using Pseudomonas bacteria – a medically important group known for its diverse arsenal – he will investigate when different weapons are most effective, how they interact with one another, and whether carrying several weapons helps microbes adapt to changing environments and opponents. The project will also explore how rival bacteria evolve resistance, and whether combinations of weapons can make it harder for resistance to emerge.

The findings could have implications far beyond understanding microbial ecology. By uncovering the evolutionary logic behind bacterial weapon systems, the work could inform the development of new antimicrobial approaches and more resilient biocontrol technologies.

The fellowship will support an ambitious five-year programme of research examining how bacterial arsenals evolve, how different weapons perform under different environmental conditions, and which combinations are most resistant to evolutionary counter-attacks. The project will draw on expertise in evolutionary biology, microbiology, genomics and mathematical modelling to build a comprehensive picture of how microbial conflicts shape the communities that surround us. Will says of the award “I'm absolutely thrilled to receive this award, and I couldn't have done it without the amazing support Manchester has given me during my Sir Henry Wellcome Fellowship."

Ultimately, Will hopes the research will help scientists predict competitive interactions within microbial communities and develop new ways of harnessing beneficial microbes for applications in health, biotechnology and agriculture. His long-term vision is to understand how microbial weapons and defences co-evolve, opening the door to new generations of antimicrobials designed to remain effective for longer in the face of resistance.

But studying glycans has a major challenge: because many glycans are highly water-soluble, or hydrophilic, they cannot easily cross the cell membrane and must be modified with a hydrophobic moiety – a water repelling chemical group – and prepared and delivered with potentially harmful solvents.

Professor Matthew Gibson and his team have now demonstrated a new approach using a small super chaotropic nanostructure made of boron to transport these molecules directly into mammalian cells, crucially removing the need for cytotoxic organic solvents such as dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO).

Delivering the sugars to programme cell surfaces

One widely used technique for studying glycans is metabolic oligosaccharide engineering, where modified sugars carrying a chemical ‘handle’ are introduced into cells. These sugars, specifically designed to be tracked and followed through the cell, allow researchers to investigate their biological functions. But, as these sugars are hydrophilic (water-loving), the hydrophobic cell membrane prevents them from passing through.

To combat this, the research team used the new boron delivery method, to introduce the unnatural sugars into the cell where they were metabolised and used to ‘edit’ the surface of the cell. The ‘handle’ from the modified glycan, now on the cell surface, can be used to potentially reprogramme or add new cell functions.

The researchers also used the technique to investigate recently discovered glycoRNA – RNA molecules associated with glycans which have only recently been discovered.

A cleaner delivery service for glycans

By removing some of the practical barriers associated with intracellular glycan delivery, the researchers believe the approach could provide new opportunities across glycobiology and cell-surface engineering, as well as related areas including autophagy, cryobiology and infection research.

Future research will focus on increasing the amount of glycan that can be transported into cells, with the aim of matching the delivery performance of existing acetylation-based methods.

The study, published in Nature Communications, examined clusters made from three thorium atoms and found that they display an unusual field-induced magnetic behaviour. The discovery helps explain conflicting interpretations of these materials and could improve how chemists assess aromaticity in metal-based systems.

A long-running debate about metal aromaticity

Aromaticity is a fundamental concept in chemistry that helps explain the stability and behaviour of molecules. While it is traditionally associated with carbon-containing compounds such as benzene, researchers have recently discovered forms of aromaticity in all-metal systems. One such example involves clusters of three thorium atoms that had previously been reported to show signs of so-called Jellium aromaticity, a form of electron delocalisation found in metal clusters.

However, those earlier findings sparked debate because experimental measurements suggested the clusters were aromatic, while some computational studies argued otherwise. To investigate the disagreement, researchers synthesised and characterised an expanded family of one-electron and two-electron trithorium clusters and compared their magnetic behaviour with that of conventional organic aromatic compounds.

An unexpected magnetic response

Using a combination of synthesis, spectroscopy, electrochemistry, crystallography, magnetic measurements and quantum chemical calculations, the team found that all of the thorium clusters exhibited unusually strong diamagnetism, a magnetic signature associated with aromatic behaviour. This was true for both open-shell and closed-shell systems, demonstrating that all the clusters behaved as aromatic "superatoms".

The researchers also observed something unexpected. Instead of responding immediately and linearly to an applied magnetic field, the thorium clusters initially showed a weak paramagnetic response before switching to strong diamagnetism as the field increased. By contrast, familiar organic aromatic molecules including benzene, naphthalene and anthracene displayed the expected linear response from near zero field.

The findings suggest that electrons in the thorium clusters must first reorganise under the influence of an external magnetic field before establishing the coherent electronic motion responsible for aromaticity. According to the authors, this behaviour helps explain why some computational methods, which assume a linear response, have produced conflicting conclusions about whether the clusters are aromatic.

The work highlights an important distinction between classical organic aromaticity and emerging forms of all-metal aromaticity. While organic aromatic systems appear to be naturally arranged to sustain aromatic currents, the thorium clusters seem to require an external field to trigger the electronic reorganisation needed to produce the same effect.

The researchers say the study demonstrates the need for caution when using magnetic current calculations alone to assign aromatic character, particularly in systems containing heavy metals where non-linear magnetic responses may be more common than previously recognised. The findings could help researchers better understand bonding in complex metal systems and refine future approaches for evaluating aromaticity.

Published in Nature Catalysis, the research addresses a long-standing challenge in chemistry: developing biological catalysts that can selectively construct complex molecular architectures. Carbon-carbon and carbon-nitrogen bonds are fundamental building blocks in many chemicals, pharmaceuticals and advanced materials.

To expand upon the reaction pathways found in natural enzymes, the researchers engineered proteins containing a non-natural catalytic amino acid. This facilitated the development of a new enzyme class, termed allylic transferases, which form highly reactive imidazolium intermediates that could then be intercepted by a variety of carbon- and nitrogen-containing molecules, selectively producing a diverse range of products.

The team used directed evolution to improve enzyme performance. One evolved variant, known as ASB1.3, achieved more than 99% conversion in several reactions while delivering products with high stereochemical purity. In a preparative-scale reaction, the enzyme produced the target compound with 98% conversion.

A second enzyme variant, ASA1.5, enabled the formation of molecules containing all-carbon quaternary stereocentres, structures that can be challenging to synthesise selectively. In preparative-scale experiments, the enzyme achieved 98% conversion.

The researchers demonstrated that the engineered enzymes could work with a broad range of reaction partners, including substituted furans, indoles, pyrroles, cyanoesters, diketones, ketoesters, anilines and isatins. Across the reactions examined, the enzymes generated a single major product with no observable by-products other than the released leaving group used for monitoring the reaction.

Expanding the biocatalysis toolbox

Structural analysis also provided new insights into how the enzymes achieve their selectivity. The team found evidence that a para-nitrophenol group released during the reaction remains in the enzyme active site and helps orient incoming reactants, contributing to stereoselective bond formation.

While further development will be needed before these enzymes can be applied more widely, the study expands the range of chemical transformations available through biocatalysis. The study highlights how engineered protein catalysts can provide new ways to access molecular structures that are difficult to produce using established small-molecule catalysts.

First author Zachary Birch-Price said:

Mitochondria provide the energy that cells need to function. Mutations in their DNA can cause serious, progressive conditions affecting organs and tissues with high energy demands, including the brain, heart and muscles. Around one in 5,000 people is affected by a mitochondrial disease, and there is currently no cure.

The Manchester team, led by Sarah Lovelock, Professor of Biological Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, will combine genome mining, computational enzyme design and laboratory evolution to develop next-generation base editing tools capable of selectively targeting the most common disease-causing mutations in mitochondrial DNA.

Led by the University of Cambridge, the centre includes partners at the universities of Birmingham, Manchester, Heidelberg and Queensland, the Imagine Institute in Paris, patient charity The Lily Foundation and industry organisations worldwide.

By bringing together academic, clinical, patient and industry perspectives, the centre aims to establish a long-term research platform that can define the causes of mitochondrial disease and accelerate progress towards therapies.

The research, published today in Nature, describes a new family of antifungal agents, which - when tested in mice - are more potent and less toxic than existing treatments.

A growing threat

Fungal diseases are an escalating global health threat, becoming harder to treat as resistance to existing drugs grows and the development of new antifungal medicines lags behind. The urgency for new treatments was emphasised by a recent report by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

While existing antifungal medicines can be highly effective, many can cause serious side effects because fungal cells share similarities with human cells, making it difficult to target infections without harming healthy tissue.

Discovering new antifungal compounds

In the new study, researchers from the Micklefield Lab focused on polyenes — a class of powerful antifungal agents. Using an approach called genome mining, they identified bacterial species capable of producing new, undiscovered antifungals.

Dr Saadia Nasr Mirza who worked on the project said: “The most effective antifungal agent currently available is a polyene molecule called amphotericin produced by soil bacteria. Although amphotericin is very potent, it is highly toxic, so we set out to discover if bacteria can produce different types of polyenes that are safer than amphotericin. We developed a bioinformatics pipeline, which surprisingly showed that many bacterial species have the capability to produce novel polyenes.”

More potent, less toxic treatments

Using a technique called nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), the team determined the structures of the newly discovered polyenes, showing that each one had a unique structure that differed from any existing antifungal compounds. The researchers also characterised the enzymes responsible for producing them and generated a library of polyene derivatives for testing.

Several of the new compounds showed increased antifungal activity, reduced toxicity and improved solubility compared with the parent drugs. The findings demonstrate that enzymes can be used to redesign these important medicines in a cleaner, more efficient way, producing new compounds that retain strong antifungal activity while reducing toxicity and harmful side effects.

One compound, known as Nys34, showed particularly promising results. In a mouse model of invasive aspergillosis, a serious fungal infection caused by Aspergillus fumigatus, the compound reduced fungal burden without substantive signs of toxicity.

Professor Jason Micklefield who led the project said “We were pleased to find that several of the new polyene derivatives were more potent and less toxic than amphotericin and nystatin, which is another important polyene that is also used in the clinic.

“Surprisingly, we found that one of the most effective new polyene derivatives, Nys34, has a different mode-of-action to the widely used amphotericin. Because Nys34 kills fungal cells in a different way, it could prove very useful to combat emerging pathogens that have evolved resistance to amphotericin.”

A cleaner way to develop new medicines

Polyene antifungal drugs are highly complex molecules. Previous efforts to improve them have typically relied on lengthy chemical synthesis processes that are expensive, inefficient and can require environmentally harmful reagents.

The Micklefield lab, based at Imperial’s Molecular Sciences Research Hub, developed an enzyme-based approach that can produce improved polyenes by cleaner and more efficient biological processes, generating promising new drug candidates without the need for complex multi-step chemical manufacturing.

Because the process is potentially scalable and cost-effective, it could help make improved antifungal treatments more widely available, particularly in lower-income regions where fungal diseases are highest place a substantial burden on public health.

The researchers hope that further development of Nys34 could ultimately lead to clinical testing in people. Beyond Nys34, their enzyme platform provides a powerful new way of generating and refining polyene antifungal compounds that could be used to create additional treatments for a range of fungal diseases, helping to expand the limited pipeline of new antifungal medicines.

Published in Nature Communications, the study led by researchers from The University of Manchester, the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis and the University of Münster describe a family of tellurium-based catalysts that use chalcogen bonding to control reaction outcomes through non-covalent interactions.

Chalcogen bonding, which arises from electron-deficient regions known as σ-holes, has attracted growing attention as a tool for catalysis. However, translating these comparatively weak interactions into effective asymmetric catalysis has proved difficult, particularly when using neutral catalyst systems. Most successful examples reported to date have relied on charged catalysts to strengthen substrate binding.

To address this limitation, the researchers used computational modelling to design a series of chiral tellurium-triazole catalysts capable of forming a confined binding environment around reacting molecules. They identified a catalyst incorporating a 1,3-diaminocyclohexane backbone that could adopt a bidentate binding arrangement, allowing two tellurium centres to interact cooperatively with a substrate.

When tested experimentally, the catalyst was able to induce asymmetry in benchmark Reissert-type reactions of quinolines and isoquinolines. The best-performing examples reached enantiomeric ratios of up to 89:11, providing evidence that neutral chalcogen-bond donors can transfer chiral information during catalysis.

Dr Olga García Mancheño, corresponding author and Professor of Catalysis in Organic Chemistry at the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis, who led the experimental catalysis work, adds: "Chalcogen bonding has enormous potential as a tool for catalysis, but translating these relatively weak interactions into reliable asymmetric control has proved challenging. This was only possible by bringing together computational design, synthesis and experimental catalysis. The study shows that carefully designed neutral chalcogen-bond donors can overcome an important limitation in the field and opens the door to more selective systems in the future."

The team combined computational design, synthesis and mechanistic studies to understand why some catalyst architectures performed better than others. Spectroscopic and computational analyses showed that the most effective catalyst forms two cooperative chalcogen-bond interactions with a bound chloride ion, supported by additional hydrogen-bonding contacts that help stabilise the catalytic complex.

Alternative catalyst designs either failed to bind effectively or produced little or no enantioselectivity, highlighting the importance of catalyst geometry in controlling stereochemical outcomes.

"The computational analysis allowed us to understand why certain catalyst structures were successful while others were not", says James O'Brien, who carried out the computational studies at The University of Manchester. "It revealed how subtle changes in catalyst geometry influence binding and selectivity, helping us identify the features needed for effective chalcogen-bonding catalysis."

Lary Massold, who conducted the experimental studies says: “From the two most promising synthesised chalcogen donors, the catalyst with a weaker binding but more directive bidentate interactions with the substrate showed higher selectivity and stereocontrol. With this study we proved that fine-tuning of weak interactions plays a crucial role in this area of supramolecular catalysis.”

Although the levels of stereocontrol remain below those routinely achieved with more established classes of asymmetric catalyst, the work provides a proof of principle for neutral chalcogen-bonding catalysis and offers a framework for designing more selective systems.

The authors say the design principles identified in the study could help guide future efforts to harness weak non-covalent interactions for increasingly complex catalytic transformations.

The College was formally launched on 18 June 2026 at the Royal Society in London and brings together experts from universities, industry and research organisations across the UK. Professor Dixon is one of 71 members selected through a highly competitive process that attracted nearly 1,200 applications. College members volunteer their time to support government decision-making through expert advice, workshops and peer review.

The appointment comes at a time when engineering biology is increasingly recognised as a strategic technology for the UK’s future prosperity. The sector is expected to play a pivotal role in developing new routes to manufacture chemicals, materials and consumer products from renewable resources, strengthening supply-chain resilience while helping industries reduce their reliance on fossil-derived feedstocks.

“The launch of the College of Experts at the Royal Society brought together an extraordinary group of independent specialists from across the UK, spanning AI, quantum, life sciences, cyber security, and far beyond. The experts volunteer their time to support us, reflecting a real commitment from the UK’s research and innovation community to contribute to government policymaking. Seeing DSIT colleagues and world-leading academics and practitioners in the same room was a powerful reminder of what this department can achieve when it draws on the best available expertise.”

— Professor Chris Johnson, DSIT Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the College of Experts

Engineering biology’s role in UK growth and net zero

Professor Dixon joins the College in recognition of more than two decades of leadership in engineering biology, sustainable biotechnology and industrial biomanufacturing. His research focuses on developing advanced biological systems that enable renewable and waste-derived carbon feedstocks to be transformed into valuable chemicals, materials and products, supporting the transition towards a more sustainable manufacturing economy.

His work aligns closely with the UK’s science and industrial priorities: engineering biology has been identified as a critical technology for future growth, while sustainable manufacturing, resource efficiency and net zero are central to the UK’s long-term economic resilience.

From Manchester for the UK

Manchester has long been at the forefront of engineering biology and sustainable biotechnology, bringing together the scientific expertise, facilities and industry partnerships needed to turn discovery into practical solutions. As the UK looks to strengthen its industrial base, build resilience and meet its net zero commitments, engineering biology will have a significant role to play – from cleaner routes to chemicals, fuels and materials, to new ways of reducing waste and using resources more sustainably. We are pleased to be part of this national conversation and to contribute evidence, insight and innovation that can help shape a more sustainable and competitive future for UK industry.

Chemical bonding is often described in terms of covalency, where atoms share electrons. While this concept is well understood, experimentally measuring covalency remains challenging and no single method works reliably in all cases. One of the most direct approaches is X‑ray charge density determination, which maps where electrons sit within a material, but this typically requires exceptionally high‑quality crystals and highly controlled conditions, limiting its use in routine studies.   

To address this, the researchers used HAR, a form of quantum crystallography, which combines experimental X‑ray data with theoretical calculations to build a detailed picture of electron density, the distribution of electrons that defines how atoms bond. This method is more accessible than traditional charge density techniques, but until now has been difficult to apply to heavy elements such as actinides, where electron behaviour becomes more complex due to relativistic effects.  

To test the method, the team analysed two trithorium clusters, which differ in how many electrons are involved in bonding. In one case, a single electron is shared across all three atoms, while in the other, two electrons are shared. Both systems act as “extreme test cases” because the atoms are heavy and closely spaced, making their electron distributions difficult to resolve.  

By analysing the electron density, the researchers identified features such as bond critical points, which mark where bonding interactions occur. The measurements matched closely with theoretical calculations, providing direct evidence for thorium–thorium bonding and helping resolve debate about how electrons are shared in these systems.  

The results also revealed clear differences between the two clusters, consistent with their underlying characteristics. These differences reflect how the number of shared electrons changes the nature of the bonding. Importantly, the method achieved this using standard experimental data rather than the specialised conditions typically required for charge density studies. This suggests that HAR could be applied more widely to investigate bonding in other complex materials. 

Professor Liddle, adds: “Understanding how electrons are distributed in these systems is important because small changes in bonding can affect how materials behave, including their chemical reactivity and physical properties. By providing a way to directly measure electron sharing, the approach offers a more reliable way to connect experimental observations with theoretical predictions.” 

In a new study published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, the team – led by Professor Gavin Miller – have created modified sugar building blocks that can be assembled automatically into defined structures, enabling scientists to probe their behaviour in unprecedented detail.

The team focused on alginates – a sugar widely used as a thickener in food and as a components of wound dressings. By introducing a small chemical modification (replacing part of the molecule with fluorine), they were able to subtly alter how these sugars behave without disrupting their overall structure.

Crucially, the researchers showed that these modified building blocks can be assembled using automated synthesis – a process that allows complex molecules to be built step by step with high precision. This enabled the creation of a library of tailored sugar chains with specific modifications at defined positions.

Unlocking how structure controls function

Using advanced analytical techniques, including nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), the team demonstrated that the modified sugars retain their overall shape, even though key internal interactions are altered.

This finding is significant because it shows that scientists can “tune” specific features of a molecule without fundamentally changing how it behaves – allowing them to isolate and study individual interactions in complex biological systems.

New tools for biotechnology and medicine

The ability to design and synthesise these molecules opens up new possibilities for research and application.

Fluorinated sugars can act as sensitive “reporters”, making it easier to track interactions between molecules using spectroscopic methods. They can also help scientists better understand how enzymes process sugars – an important step in areas ranging from infection biology to materials science.

More broadly, this work lays the foundation for developing tailored carbohydrate-based materials, where structure and function can be engineered with precision.

By providing a reliable method to build and study these modified sugars, the research offers a new platform for exploring how carbohydrate structure affects behaviour – helping to bridge a long-standing gap in molecular science.

Scientists have long tried to replicate this behaviour using synthetic materials, but most designs have focused on how molecules interact with ice at their surface.

In a study published in Chemical Science, the team – led by Professor Matthew Gibson –  have shown for the first time that the internal structure of polymer nanoparticles, rather than their outer surface, plays a key role in controlling ice growth. This was a collaboration with Professor Steve Armes FRS at Sheffield Univeristy.

Looking inside the particle

The team created a library of polymer nanoparticles using a scalable technique known as polymerisation‑induced self‑assembly. These particles consist of a water‑exposed outer layer and a hidden inner core.

Surprisingly, the researchers found that changing the chemistry of the inner core dramatically altered how effectively the particles inhibited ice recrystallisation – the process by which ice crystals grow larger over time.

Particles with “soft” cores showed significantly higher activity, strongly suppressing ice growth, while those with more rigid cores were less effective.

Even more strikingly, chemically locking the core structure removed this activity entirely.

A new design principle

The findings challenge the conventional view that only the surface of a material interacts with ice. Instead, they show that internal mobility and structure within nanoparticles can influence how ice crystals behave.

The study suggests that individual polymer chains within the particles may play a role in interacting with ice as conditions change during freezing and thawing.

Applications from medicine to materials

Materials that control ice growth are important in a wide range of applications, from preserving cells and tissues to improving the texture of frozen foods and developing anti‑icing coatings.

By providing a new way to design these materials, the research opens up opportunities to develop more effective, scalable and cost‑efficient alternatives to natural antifreeze proteins.

The work also establishes a broader framework for designing functional nanoparticles, showing that internal structure can be as important as surface chemistry in determining performance.

Improving carbon efficiency in microbial manufacturing

Microbial platforms are widely used to produce fuels, chemicals and materials from renewable feedstocks. However, much of the carbon consumed by microbes is lost as carbon dioxide during metabolism, limiting carbon efficiency and contributing to emissions. Micaela’s research aims to tackle this challenge by exploring mixotrophy, a metabolic mode in which microbes can use both organic carbon sources and carbon dioxide at the same time.

By co-assimilating CO₂ alongside sugars or waste-derived feedstocks, mixotrophic microbes have the potential to retain more carbon within the production process. This could improve product yields, reduce emissions, and make biomanufacturing more economically viable.

Supporting a more sustainable bioeconomy

Despite its promise, the diversity and efficiency of mixotrophic metabolism remains poorly understood, and its potential is largely underutilised in biotechnology. Through her fellowship, Micaela will investigate this metabolic capability in greater depth, identifying and characterising new microbes capable of efficient carbon co-assimilation. Her work will focus on organisms found in high-CO₂ volcanic soils, using advanced genomic, cultivation and analytical approaches to uncover and evaluate previously untested strains. This interdisciplinary programme will be hosted by Professor Sophie Nixon and draw on continued collaborations with Professor Neil Dixon, the University of Iceland and the Technical University of Denmark.

The project will generate new insights into how carbon flows through microbial systems and identify strains with strong potential for industrial application. By defining the conditions that maximise carbon retention, the research will establish a comparative framework for designing next-generation low-emission bioprocesses.

This fellowship strengthens MIB’s role in developing sustainable biotechnology solutions, contributing to efforts to reduce industrial emissions and support a circular, carbon-efficient bioeconomy.

Further reactivity studies revealed that these chains can fragment into N₁ and N₃ species, and can also serve as a source of nitrene radical anions. 

Detailed analysis showed how the nitrogen chain can break into smaller fragments, specifically single‑atom (N₁) and three‑atom (N₃) units. The researchers also found that these chains can act as a source of highly reactive nitrene radical anions. 

These findings provide new insight into the fundamental chemistry of nitrogen and demonstrate ways to control its reactivity under realistic conditions. 

Nitrogen chains are considered high‑energy‑density materials because they can release significant energy when they decompose into nitrogen gas. This property has long made them attractive for applications such as propellants, explosives, and gas‑generating systems. 

The ability to isolate and stabilise such molecules under ambient conditions could allow scientists to explore their use as “storable” reagents for transferring nitrogen groups in chemical reactions 

Beyond applications, the research offers a rare glimpse into a type of chemistry that plays a role in extreme environments, including the upper atmosphere where nitrogen chain ions have been detected. 

By recreating and stabilising these species in the laboratory, scientists can now investigate their properties in far greater detail, providing insights relevant to fields ranging from atmospheric chemistry to planetary science. 

This research was co-led by Professor Nikolas Kaltsoyannis with Professor Meera Mehra, the University of Oxford, in collaboration with The University of Manchester’s Daniel Galano, George F. S. Whitehead, Adam Brookfield, and Dr Alice M. Bowen, and Oxford’s Bono van IJzendoorn. First author was Oxford’s Reece Lister-Roberts. 
 

This new technique utilises self‑assembling polymer carriers for gene delivery, improving effectiveness and reducing the toxicity to cells over existing techniques in lab tests. These advances rely on safe and efficient methods for delivering gene‑editing tools into cells, which is a key bottleneck in enabling widespread application. Improving upon existing gene delivery methods has become essential to enable these developments and allow more effective transfection.

The process of introducing DNA or RNA into cells to change gene expression, can be achieved using viral or non‑viral vectors. While viral vectors are powerful, they raise safety and manufacturing concerns, driving intense interest in the development of safer, non‑viral alternatives. Transfection, using polymeric carriers or lipid nanoparticles to deliver genetic material, is a key non‑viral strategy. However current systems often struggle to balance efficiency and toxicity. In order to develop polymer systems for molecular delivery applications, more advanced polymer systems need to be developed and screened.

In research published in ACS Materials Letters, the team demonstrates that polyplexes produced via Polymerization‑Induced Electrostatic Self‑Assembly (PIESA) offer a more effective and versatile route to gene delivery than conventional produced polymeric polyplexes. Polyplexes are formed when positively charged polymers bind to negatively charged DNA or RNA, creating nanoscale complexes that can enable genetic material to enter cells. Traditionally, polyplexes are prepared using pre-synthesised polymers which are then mixed with DNA or RNA. However, this post‑assembly step can lead to instability and increased cell toxicity, often limiting the size of genetic payloads that can be delivered effectively.

PIESA using PET‑RAFT (Photoinduced Electron/Energy Transfer Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain-Transfer) polymerisation overcomes these limitations by driving electrostatic self‑assembly during polymer growth. As the polymer forms, it binds to the genetic material, producing polyplexes with controlled sizes, structures, and physicochemical properties. By using a “one‑pot” approach to produce polyplexes, the need for complex post‑processing is avoided, resulting in improved consistency and facilitating high‑throughput screening of formulations

The study shows that PIESA‑derived polyplexes are less toxic to cells than their conventionally assembled counterparts and act as more effective gene delivery vehicles in transfection trials, achieving higher gene expression while preserving cell viability.

Transitioning to advanced synthesis and assembly strategies such as PIESA could open the door to the next‑generation of non‑viral gene delivery systems, with improved transfection, broader formulation windows, and reduced cell toxicity.

Dr Lee Fielding added “This approach potentially opens up a more reliable and scalable route to non‑viral gene delivery. By innovating in how polyplexes can be prepared and screened for improved efficiency, while reducing toxicity, we hope it will help accelerate the development of gene delivery technologies and make them more accessible across biomedical research and clinical applications."

This breakthrough provides fresh insight into one of chemistry’s most familiar concepts – aromaticity – and shows it can occur not only in carbon‑based rings like benzene, but also in unusual clusters of heavy metals.

A new twist on a classic chemical idea

In everyday chemistry, aromatic molecules such as benzene are valued for their stability, which comes from electrons circulating smoothly around a ring. This “ring current” is a signature of aromaticity and is usually found in organic (carbon-based) molecules.

The new study shows that a tiny ring of three bismuth atoms (Bi₃) also supports these circulating currents, behaving as an aromatic system, despite being made entirely of heavy metals.

Even more remarkably, this behaviour is dominated by sigma (σ) electrons, rather than the more familiar π electrons that define aromaticity in organic chemistry.

What this means for chemistry 

The finding bridges the gap between traditional organic chemistry and the emerging field of all-metal aromaticity, offering:

• The heaviest aromatic ring ever identified, made from three bismuth atoms.
• The first actinide “inverse sandwich” complexes supporting such a metal ring, using uranium and thorium to hold the Bi₃ unit in place.
• Clear experimental and computational evidence that the bismuth ring has strong ring currents – a hallmark of aromaticity – even in the presence of large, magnetic metal ions.

This adds a new entry to the catalogue of aromatic molecules and helps scientists understand how aromaticity behaves in heavy elements, which is valuable for areas such as materials science, metal cluster chemistry, and actinide research.

A step toward understanding heavy element chemistry

The international team synthesised and studied two new complexes: 

• a diuranium complex containing the Bi₃ ring, and
• a dithorium version that behaves similarly.

Using Xray crystallography, the researchers confirmed the shape and symmetry of the three-atom ring. They then used magnetic measurements, spectroscopy and advanced computer modelling to show that electrons move around the bismuth ring in a continuous, stabilising current, just as they do in classic aromatic molecules.

Even more intriguingly, the dithorium complex showed measurable exalted diamagnetism, an effect directly associated with aromatic ring currents.

The work provides benchmark data to help chemists compare traditional organic aromaticity with its all‑metal counterpart. It also shows how unusual ring systems can be stabilised using actinides – metals at the bottom of the periodic table that often behave in unexpected ways.

By proving that such a heavy‑element ring can not only exist but also display aromatic stability, the research opens new possibilities for designing metal‑based clusters and exploring the boundaries of chemical bonding.

The study, published today in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), describes how the research team, led by Professors Anthony Green and Nick Turner, used directed evolution to develop a bespoke aminotransferase, a type of enzyme, to significantly accelerate the manufacturing process and reduce production costs. This new biocatalytic route has the potential to improve global access to this important medicine.

Lenacapavir, recently approved by the FDA and MHRA, is a twice‑yearly injectable drug that has shown extremely high levels of protection in pre‑exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) trials. Royalty‑free licence agreements are already in place to enable generic manufacturers to supply Lenacapavir to 120 lower‑income countries, yet the high cost of producing its active pharmaceutical ingredient remains a major barrier to widespread availability.

A sustainable route to a complex molecule

Made up of four distinct building blocks, Lenacapavir’s highly functionalised central core is a very challenging building block to synthesise. This core is constructed from a chiral amine that can exist in two mirror-image forms (like a left and a right hand). The handedness – or chirality – is important in pharmaceuticals as only one form of the molecule will work as intended.

Currently, Lenacapavir is made via traditional multi-step chemical synthesis, but due to the central core’s chirality and challenging molecular structure it is a costly and time-consuming process. Biocatalysis offers significant potential for faster and cheaper production.

To achieve this, the MIB team focused on using directed evolution – a method that speeds up nature’s trial-and-error evolution process – to develop an enzyme that could catalyse the target reaction to produce the chiral amine core. Using an approach known as substrate walking, the researchers began with an aminotransferase that showed no detectable activity on the desired substrate. Over eight rounds of directed evolution, involving screening more than 12,000 enzyme variants, they installed ten mutations that progressively unlocked activity, improved stability and reshaped the active site of the enzyme so that it could accept the central amine core’s bulky ketone precursor.

The final enzyme performed exceptionally well, converting 98% of the starting substrate, producing a yield of more than 90% with a purity of over 99% enantiomeric excess (e.e.) meaning that the correct chiral form was produced. The researchers also tested the enzyme under industrially relevant conditions showing its potential to work at scale.

The team also used X-ray crystallography to create a detailed 3D picture of the improved enzyme showing how the molecular changes arising from evolution allowed the enzyme to accept the substrate and transform it into the target product. Understanding the enzyme’s structure helps scientists unpick its mechanism of action which allows them to improve future enzyme design campaigns.

Towards large‑scale implementation

The team is now collaborating with industrial partners to translate the methodology from laboratory scale to industrial biomanufacturing. The details of this new manufacturing route are also freely available for companies to use. Any company interested in producing Lenacapavir via this new process can contact Prozomix to request free samples of the enzyme. If implemented at scale, the process could enable a shorter, cleaner and more economical production route for Lenacapavir, supporting ambitions to make long‑acting HIV prevention accessible worldwide.

Building more reliable AI molecular models

Machine‑learned potentials (MLPs) are widely used to approximate quantum mechanical behaviour in molecules, but most existing models become unstable when molecules experience heat, movement or structural distortion. This makes long, reliable simulations extremely difficult to achieve.

The Manchester team – Bienfait Kabuyaya Isamura, Olivia Aten, Mohamadhosein Nosratjoo and Professor Paul Popelier – has solved this long‑standing challenge by integrating deep physical knowledge directly into their model. 

The researchers built a new AI model using Gaussian process regression, to understand how atoms in a molecule naturally behave. To do this, they fed the model detailed information about how atoms interact in real life, based on the rules of quantum physics, to help the AI make more realistic predictions about how each part of a molecule should move.

They also discovered that a small mathematical choice, called the “prior mean function”, affected the stability of the model; with this function in place, the AI had the correct “starting point” to create and sustain a stable model even when a molecule is stretched, heated or shaken.

A smarter way to keep molecules from breaking down

Unlike conventional approaches, the new model uses real-world physical principles to prevent atoms from collapsing together or flying apart when the molecule enters high‑energy states. This enables reliable simulations even far beyond room temperature.

The team demonstrated the model’s robustness with 50 independent simulations, each lasting 10 nanoseconds, totalling 0.5 microseconds of stable dynamics, a milestone rarely achieved by machine‑learning force fields. Even highly flexible molecules such as aspirin, serine and glycine remained stable throughout.

The model was also able to repair distorted structures and accurately reproduce known conformations, such as those of alanine dipeptide, a key benchmark molecule in computational chemistry.

Beyond stability, the model is computationally efficient, running on standard CPU hardware at speeds comparable to or faster than leading neural‑network-based potentials that require high‑end GPUs.

The research opens up new opportunities for simulations in extreme environments, condensed matter and biomolecular systems where long‑timescale accuracy is essential. The team is now extending the approach to include electron correlation effects and develop more transferable descriptors.

Published today in Science, it is the first experimental observation of a half-Möbius electronic topology in a single molecule. To the scientists’ knowledge, a molecule with such topology has never before been synthesized, observed, or even formally predicted. 

Understanding this molecule’s behavior at the electronic structure level required something equally fundamental: a high fidelity quantum computing simulation. The discovery advances science on two fronts. For chemistry, it demonstrates that electronic topology - the property governing how electrons move through a molecule - can be deliberately engineered, not merely found in nature. 

For quantum computing, it is a concrete demonstration of a quantum simulation doing what it was designed to do: representing quantum mechanical behavior directly, at the molecular scale, to produce scientific insight that would otherwise have remained out of reach. 

“First, we designed a molecule we thought could be created, then we built it, and then we validated it and its exotic properties with a quantum computer,” said Alessandro Curioni, IBM Fellow, Vice President, Europe and Africa, and Director of IBM Research Zurich. “This is a leap towards the dream laid out by renowned physicist Richard Feynman decades ago to build a computer that can best simulate quantum physics and a demonstration where, as he said, ‘There’s plenty of room at the bottom.’ The success of this research signals a step towards this vision, opening the door for new ways to explore our world and the matter within it.

Dr Igor Rončević, paper co-author, Lecturer in Computational and Theoretical Chemistry at The University of Manchester, added: “Chemistry and solid-state physics advance by finding new ways to control matter. In the second half of the 20th century, substituent effects were very popular. For example, researchers explored how the potency of a drug or the elasticity of a material changes if, for example, a methyl is replaced with chlorine. The turn of the century brought us spintronics, introducing electron spin as a new degree of freedom to play with, and transforming data storage. Today, our work shows that topology can also serve as a switchable degree of freedom, opening a new powerful route for controlling material properties. 

“The non-trivial topology of this molecule, and the exotic behavior of many other systems, arises from interactions between their electrons. Simulating electrons with classical computers is very hard – a decade ago we could exactly model 16 electrons, and today we can go up to 18. Quantum computers are naturally well-suited for this problem because their building blocks – qubits – are quantum objects, which mirror electrons. Using IBM’s quantum computer, we were able to explore 32 electrons. However, the most exciting part is this is just the start. Quantum hardware is advancing rapidly, and the future is quantum.”

A Never-Before-Seen Molecule 

The molecule, with the formula C₁₃Cl₂, was assembled atom-by-atom at IBM from a custom precursor synthesized at Oxford University, with individual atoms removed one at a time using precisely calibrated voltage pulses under ultra-high vacuum at nearabsolute-zero temperatures. 

Experiments with scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopy, both techniques pioneered at IBM, combined with quantum computing to reveal an electronic configuration with no counterpart in chemistry's existing record: an electronic structure that undergoes a 90-degree twist with each circuit, requiring four complete loops to return to the starting phase. 

This half-Möbius topology is qualitatively distinct from any previously known molecule and can be reversibly switched between clockwise-twisted, counterclockwise-twisted and untwisted states — demonstrating that electronic topology is not a property to be discovered, but one that can now be deliberately engineered under specific conditions.

A Disruptive Scientific Tool: Quantum-Centric Supercomputing 

The scientists in this experiment created a molecule that had never existed. Now they had to figure out why it worked, a task which challenged conventional computers. The electrons within C₁₃Cl₂ interact in deeply entangled ways — each influencing all the others simultaneously. Modeling that behavior requires tracking every possible configuration of those interactions at once, requiring computational demands that grow exponentially and can quickly overwhelm classical machines.

Quantum computers are different by nature because they operate according to the same quantum mechanical laws that govern electrons in molecules, and they can represent these systems directly rather than approximate them. They “speak” the same fundamental language as the matter they are built to study and that distinction, once largely theoretical, can now contribute to concrete scientific results.

This capability offers tremendous potential for quantum computers to support realworld experimentation with quantum-centric supercomputing workflows. By integrating quantum processing units (QPUs), CPUs, and GPUs, quantum-centric supercomputing allows complex problems to be broken into parts that are orchestrated and solved according to each system’s strengths — achieving what no single compute paradigm can deliver alone.

Utilizing an IBM quantum computer within such a workflow, the team found helical molecular orbitals for electron attachment, a fingerprint of the half-Möbius topology. Moreover, simulation via quantum computing helped reveal the mechanism behind the formation of the unusual topology: a helical pseudo-Jahn-Teller effect.

This achievement builds on IBM’s long legacy in nanoscale science. The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) was invented at IBM in 1981, for which IBM scientists Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1986. Its creation enabled researchers to image surfaces atom by atom. In 1989, IBM scientists developed the first reliable method for manipulating individual atoms. Over the past decades, the IBM team has extended these techniques to build and control increasingly exotic molecular structures.

This research was published in the journal Science 

Full title: A molecule with half-Möbius topology

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aea3321 

In a study published today in Nature, the team demonstrate a completely new way of probing the tiny “ticking” of the thorium-229 nucleus without needing a specialised transparent crystal – a breakthrough that could underpin a new class of timekeeping so precise it could transform navigation, communications, earthquake and volcano prediction, and deep-space exploration.

The advance builds on a landmark achievement last year, when the team succeeded  in using a laser to excite the nucleus of thorium-229 inside a transparent crystal - a feat the team has been working on for the past 15 years.

Now, researchers have achieved the same results using a tiny fraction of the material and with a method so simple and inexpensive that it opens the door to real-world nuclear clock technology.

“Previously, the transparent crystals needed to hold thorium-229 were technically demanding and costly to produce, which placed real limits on any practical application,” explained Dr Harry Morgan, co-author of the research and Lecturer in Computational and Theoretical Chemistry at The University of Manchester. “This new approach is a major step forward for the future of nuclear clocks and leaves little doubt that such a device is feasible and potentially much closer than anyone expected.”

In the new study, the team instead excited the thorium nucleus inside a microscopic thin film of thorium oxide, made by electroplating a minute amount of thorium onto a stainless-steel disc – a process similar to gold-plating jewellery and a radical simplification of their previous method.

The thorium nuclei absorb energy from a laser and then, after a few microseconds, transfer that energy to nearby electrons so it can be measured directly as an electric current. This method, known as conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy, has been in use for years, but normally requires high-energy gamma rays at special facilities. This is the first time it has  been demonstrated with a laser in an ordinary lab.

Crucially, it shows that thorium-229 can be studied inside far more common materials than previously thought, removing one of the biggest obstacles to building practical nuclear clocks.

The technique also offers new insight into how thorium-229 behaves and decays, which could one day inform new types of nuclear materials and future energy research.

“We had always assumed that in order to excite and then observe the nuclear transition the thorium needed to be embedded in a material that was transparent to the light used to excite the nucleus. In this work, we realized that is simply not true,” said UCLA physicist Eric Hudson., who led the research. “We can still force enough light into these opaque materials to excite nuclei near the surface and then, instead of emitting photons like they do in transparent materials like the crystals, they emit electrons which can be detected simply by monitoring an electrical current – which is just about the easiest thing you can do in the lab.”

Like atomic clocks, nuclear clocks rely on the natural “ticking” of single atoms. But in atomic clocks that process involves electrons, while nuclear clocks use oscillations within the nucleus itself. This makes them far less sensitive to external disturbances, giving them the potential to be orders of magnitude more accurate.

Nuclear clocks could even be used to predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Because of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, nuclear clocks should be sensitive to small changes in the Earth’s gravity due to the movement of magma and rock deep underground. By placing nuclear clocks all over earthquake zones, like Japan, Indonesia, or Pakistan, we could watch what’s going on beneath our feet in real time and predict tectonic events before they happen.

Dr Morgan added: “In the long term, this technology could revolutionise our ability to prepare for natural disasters. It’s incredibly exciting to think that thorium clocks can do things we previously thought were impossible, as well as improving everything we currently use atomic clocks for.”

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, and also included physicists from the University of Nevada Reno, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Ziegler Analytics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität at Mainz, and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

This research was published in the journal Nature

Full title: Laser-based conversion electron Mössbauer spectroscopy of 229ThO2 

DOI:10.1038/s41586-025-09776-4 

URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09776-4 [nature.com] 

Scientists have developed a simple, low-cost method to drive key chemical reactions, which could make large-scale drug manufacturing, faster, more accessible and affordable.

The new study, published in the journal Nature Synthesis today by The University of Manchester, describes how complex light or electricity-mediated methods currently used across modern chemistry could be replaced by those driven by a simpler technology - heat.

By heating two common, inexpensive chemicals together, the researchers triggered ‘electron transfer’ reactions that chemists use to make many of our everyday products and medicines.  

Lead researcher, Dr Michael James, Lecturer in Synthetic Organic Chemistry at The University of Manchester, said: “Our goal was to develop a broadly accessible and low-cost way to promote electron transfer reactions for industrial applications.

“By using something as simple as heat - something every chemistry lab already has - we’ve created a process that can be scaled more easily and used by companies without the need for expensive, specialised equipment, opening up new possibilities for chemists all over the world.”

Many modern chemical reactions rely on photochemical (light) or electrochemical (electricity) technologies to kick start ‘electron transfer reactions’ – a process that involves transferring electrons between molecules to make medicines, or other essential materials. Although these high-tech methods are powerful and effective, they can be difficult to scale up for industrial use as they require specialist reactors and costly infrastructure.

The Manchester team’s new approach achieves the same result using only heat and two widely available chemicals - a type of azo compound and a formate salt. When heated together in a standard industrial reactor, these reagents naturally form a highly reactive molecule known as ‘carbon dioxide radical anion’ - a simple yet powerful species capable of driving a wide range of chemical transformations.

Working with Dr James Douglas from AstraZeneca, the research team successfully demonstrated the scalability of the developed method  and tested it on a variety of other chemical reactions used in drug discovery.

Dr Cristina Trujillo, Lecturer in Computational & Theoretical Chemistry at The University of Manchester, added: “Radical chain chemistry underpins so many areas of science and manufacturing, so we hope this simple initiation method will be of wide use across both industry and academia. Beyond large-scale applications, it could also become a valuable tool for researchers studying new chemical reactions.”

This research was published in the journal Nature Synthesis. 

DOI: 10.1038/s44160-025-00919-z

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44160-025-00919-z

The University of Manchester is globally renowned for its pioneering research, outstanding teaching and learning, and commitment to social responsibility. We are a truly international university – ranking in the top 50 in a range of global rankings – with a diverse community of more than 44,000 students, 12,000 staff and 550,000 alumni from 190 countries.  Sign up for our e-news to hear first-hand about our international partnerships and activities across the globe. 

Based in the Department of Chemistry, Prof. Liddle works across many areas of lanthanide and actinide chemistry, but in particular he researches the chemistry of metal-ligand multiple bonding, metal-metal bonding, small molecule activation and catalysis, and transuranium science. Earlier this year Prof. Liddle was elected to the Academia Europaea in recognition of his work.

On 15-17 September, over 30 leading experts in synthetic biology, mirror biochemistry, sociology, ethics, and tech governance gathered outside of Manchester, U.K. for technical workshops co-hosted by Professor Patrick Cai of the University of Manchester and the Mirror Biology Dialogues Fund, a non-profit dedicated to understanding and addressing risks posed by mirror organisms.

Concerns about mirror organisms have been discussed at several recent scientific meetings. A conference at the Institut Pasteur – detailed in a subsequent report – explored how mirror organisms could plausibly evade many mechanisms of immunity and natural ecological controls and pose potentially significant risks to humans, animals, plants, and ecosystems.

Participants at the Manchester workshop examined four key precursor technologies that could contribute to the creation of mirror organisms. They evaluated the potential benefits of each technology, the extent to which its development would lower barriers to the creation of mirror life, and possibilities for its governance. The technologies examined were:

1. Protein synthesis Using Recombinant Elements (PURE) systems using natural-chirality proteins;
2. Mirror ribosomes;
3. “Crossover” translation systems that enable natural-chirality transcription-translation machinery to produce mirror-image proteins; and
4. The “booting-up” of fully synthetic natural-chirality cells.

“Any governance framework for mirror-image organisms should explicitly preserve beneficial mirror biomolecule research, particularly chemical synthesis of mirror biomolecules,” said Jonathan T. Sczepanski, Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M University. “Mirror biomolecules are promising candidates for treating diseases that current therapies can’t address effectively. Workshop discussions underscored the importance of drawing boundaries against high-risk applications like creating mirror life, while ensuring that therapeutic and other valuable research can progress.”

No firm conclusions on research boundaries were reached at Manchester, though international discussions on mirror life are ongoing – for example, recent discussions at the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine explored mirror life, and further engagement is planned at the National University of Singapore in 2026.

“The discussions at Manchester highlighted how creating mirror life would require major technological advances, but also that researchers are making progress on the underlying technologies,” said Kate Adamala, Associate Professor of Synthetic Biology at the University of Minnesota. “We’re still in a position where it’s possible to stop mirror life from being made, but as these technologies mature, our options for intervention will become more limited.”

“The interdisciplinary nature of these challenges became clear through our discussions,” said Joy Zhang, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent. “Red lines alone aren’t sufficient – we need a portfolio of governance approaches, including red lines, safety nets, and incentives, that account for the social and ethical dimensions of this technology.”

The Engineering and Safeguarding Synthetic Life (ESSL) conference on 18 September also featured discussions about mirror organisms. The conference included talks on synthetic cells, genome engineering, and convergence with AI and robotics. Several presentations and a panel discussion examined historical examples of red lines in scientific development; technical and ethical questions about mirror organisms; and scientific discussions since the December 2024 publication of a Science paper and Technical Report that first presented the risks of mirror organisms in detail.

“The discussions at Manchester showed the importance of scientific input and careful analysis in any decision-making around guardrails on research,” said James Smith, Deputy Director of the Mirror Biology Dialogues Fund and adjunct faculty at the J. Craig Venter Institute.

"As this conversation moves to Singapore next year, I’m excited to invite diverse stakeholders from Asia and around the world to join this critical discussion,” said Matthew Chang, Executive Director of the National Centre for Engineering Biology, Singapore, and Professor at the National University of Singapore.

Organised in partnership with Rethink Rebuild Society and supported by the Chemists’ Community Fund (Royal Society of Chemistry), 48 children aged nine to 14 visited the University’s state-of-the-art Makerspace facility over three days to take part in a variety of fun and practical experiments, including making batteries out of lemons, testing acidity with natural indicators, and simple filtration experiments.

The initiative is the brainchild of Dr Abdullatif Alfutimie, Senior Lecturer in the School of Chemical Engineering at the University. Dr Alfutimie first came to Manchester from Aleppo in 2009 to pursue postgraduate study before going on to complete his PhD in 2012. But while pursuing his research career, his home city of Aleppo – once one of Syria’s most vibrant cultural centres – was being devastated by civil war.

Staying closely connected to family and friends affected by displacement and the collapse of education, he began to consider how he might use his own expertise to help displaced students regain educational confidence.

Dr Abdullatif Alfutimie, who led the programme, said: “This event wasn't just about science — it was about recognising curiosity, celebrating identity, and creating a sense of belonging for children who often face immense challenges.

"If we need to rebuild our country or even to contribute to improve this country, we need to educate this generation.

“The enthusiasm from the pupils was truly heartwarming - one parent told us that their child couldn't wait to repeat an experiment at home for their siblings.”

The initiative concluded with a Community Celebration Day at Rethink Rebuild Society’s centre in Manchester, welcoming more than 150 children and family members. Each child received a certificate and a take-home chemistry kit to continue their learning at home. A representative from the Royal Society of Chemistry was also in attendance to present the certificates and celebrate the children’s achievements.

Magda van Leeuwen, Volunteer and Engagement Manager for the Royal Society of Chemistry, said: “Chemistry Education for Refugee Students is an important initiative that gives young people who have already experienced a lot in their lives hope and opportunities. Programmes like the one Abdullatif has developed show that chemistry really is for all and can be a catalyst for instilling a lifelong passion in our subject.

“Through the Outreach Fund and with the backing of the Chemists’ Community Fund, the RSC is committed to supporting projects that give more people the opportunity to get hands-on scientific experiences. We are proud to have played a small part and want to applaud Abdullatif and his colleagues for their hard work in putting together such a practical and engaging experience for the participants.”

The University of Manchester is recognised as a University of Sanctuary, working to make the University a welcoming and safe place for refugees and asylum seekers. The University’s commitment to supporting sanctuary seekers is embedded across its three core goals: research, teaching, and social responsibility. The city of Manchester is also a City of Sanctuary, part of the City of Sanctuary UK initiative. The University works closely with the organisation to help its aim of making Manchester a place that is open and fair. 

Read more about Abdullatif’s initiative on the RSC website.

The five-year multi-centre research project – supported by £10mn funding from Wellcome – involves researchers from the Universities of Cambridge, Kent, Manchester, Oxford, and Imperial College London. SynHG is led by Professor Jason Chin of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology; he was also recently announced as the founding Director of the Generative Biology Institute at the Ellison Institute of Technology, Oxford, and a Professor at the University of Oxford.

A dedicated social science programme, led by Professor Joy Zhang of the Centre for Global Science and Epistemic Justice at the University of Kent, runs throughout the project alongside the scientific development. The programme will work with civil society partners around the world to actively explore, assess and respond to the socio-ethical implications of tools and technologies developed by SynHG.

The benefits of human genome synthesis to research and beyond 
Since the completion of the Human Genome Project at the start of the century, researchers have sought the ability to write our genome from scratch. Unlike genome editing, genome synthesis allows for changes at a greater scale and density, with more accuracy and efficiency, and will lead to the determination of causal relationships between the organisation of the human genome and how our body functions. Synthetic genomes have the potential to open up brand new areas of research in creating targeted cell-based therapies, virus-resistant tissue transplantation and extensions may even enable the engineering of plant species with new properties, including the ability to withstand harsh climate. 

To date, scientists have successfully developed synthetic genomes for microbes such as E. coli. The field of synthetic genomics has accelerated in recent times, and advances in machine learning, data science and AI showing promise, with synthesised DNA becoming more widely available. However, today’s technology is not able to produce large, more complex sections of genetic material, such as found in crops, animals and humans. 

The research team are focusing on developing the tools and technology to synthesise large genomes exemplified by the human genome. Focusing on the human genome, as opposed to other model organisms such as mice, will allow researchers to more quickly make transformative discoveries in human biology and health.

 Professor Jason Chin, Founding Director of the Generative Biology Institute at EIT, Oxford, said: “The ability to synthesize large genomes, including genomes for human cells, may transform our understanding of genome biology and profoundly alter the horizons of biotechnology and medicine. With SynHG we are building the tools to make large genome synthesis a reality, and at the same time we are pro-actively engaging in the social, ethical, economic and policy questions that may arise as the tools and technologies advance.  We hope that Wellcome’s support for this combination of approaches will help facilitate substantive societal benefit.”

A bold, ambitious project facing complex scientific challenges 
SynHG focuses on developing the foundational tools and methods required to equip more researchers in the future. This research journey will potentially catalyse new technologies in the field of engineering biology, generating exciting discoveries about how cells use their genomes even before achieving complete genome synthesis. 

The team of researchers hope to provide proof of concept for large genome synthesis by creating a fully synthetic human chromosome, which makes up approximately 2% of our total DNA. Initially, the team hope to establish methods where small changes are made to the sequence of a chromosome with minimal onward effect on the proteins that it produces. 

Setting the foundation – testing the concept, iterating the methods, and embedding ethical considerations – could alone take many years. Even as engineering biology technologies improve, reliably building a complete synthetic human genome and meaningfully applying it to human health will likely take decades.

Michael Dunn, Director of Discovery Research at Wellcome, said: “Our DNA determines who we are and how our bodies work and with recent technological advances, the SynHG project is at the forefront of one of the most exciting areas of scientific research. Through creating the necessary tools and methods to synthesise a human genome we will answer questions about our health and disease that we cannot even anticipate yet, in turn transforming our understanding of life and wellbeing.” 

Professor Patrick Yizhi Cai, Chair of Synthetic Genomics at the University of Manchester said: "We are leveraging cutting-edge generative AI and advanced robotic assembly technologies to revolutionize synthetic mammalian chromosome engineering. Our innovative approach aims to develop transformative solutions for the pressing societal challenges of our time, creating a more sustainable and healthier future for all."

Embedding global socio-ethical discussions in scientific advancements 
To effectively translate scientific ambition into meaningful and potentially profound societal benefits, it is essential that there is proactive and sustained engagement with the evolving socio-ethical priorities and concerns of diverse communities. 

Wellcome is also funding Care-full Synthesis, a dedicated social research initiative conducting empirical studies with diverse publics worldwide. Led by Professor Joy Y. Zhang and hosted by the Centre for Global Science and Epistemic Justice (GSEJ) at the University of Kent, the project builds on GSEJ’s global network of academic, civil society, industry and policy partners to promote a new approach of science–society dialogue that is Open, Deliberative, Enabling, Sensible & Sensitive, and Innovative (‘ODESSI’). 

Professor Joy Zhang, Founding Director of the GSEJ at the University of Kent said: “With Care-full Synthesis, through empirical studies across Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa, and the Americas, we aim to establish a new paradigm for accountable scientific and innovative practices in the global age—one that explores the full potential of synthesising technical possibilities and diverse socio-ethical perspectives with care.” 

Over the next five years, the team will undertake a transdisciplinary and transcultural investigation into the socio-ethical, economic, and policy implications of synthesising human genomes. The project places particular emphasis on fostering inclusivity within and across nation-states, while engaging emerging public–private partnerships and new interest groups. 

Through the generation of rich empirical data, the team will develop a toolkit to enable effective integration of careful thinking into the management, communication, and delivery of human genome synthesis. This work aims to substantially expand the practice of accountable science and innovation, reflecting the complex realities of a hyperconnected yet ideologically fragmented world. Care-full Synthesis will achieve this by advancing a fresh approach to engaging with global communities, ensuring that fast-moving science is accompanied by robust social and legal deliberation, and identifying innovative strategies to co-ordinate regional and global governance accounting for diverse social priorities and scientific pathways.

In a boon for the future of data storage technologies, the researchers have made a new single-molecule magnet that retains its magnetic memory up to 100 Kelvin (-173 °C) – around the temperature of the Moon at night.

The finding, published in the journal Nature, is a significant advance on the previous record of 80 Kelvin (-193 °C). While still a long way from working in a standard freezer, or at room temperature, data storage at 100 Kelvin could be feasible in huge data centres, such as those used by Google.

If perfected, these single-molecule magnets could pack vast amounts of information into incredibly small spaces – possibly more than three terabytes of data per square centimetre. That’s around half a million TikTok videos squeezed into a hard drive that’s the size of a postage stamp.

The research was led by The University of Manchester, with computational modelling led by the Australian National University (ANU).

David Mills, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at The University of Manchester, said: “This research showcases the power of chemists to deliberately design and build molecules with targeted properties. The results are an exciting prospect for the use of single-molecule magnets in data storage media that is 100 times more dense than the absolute limit of current technologies.

“Although the new magnet still needs cooling far below room temperature, it is now well above the temperature of liquid nitrogen (77 Kelvin), which is a readily available coolant. So, while we won’t be seeing this type of data storage in our mobile phones for a while, it does make storing information in huge data centres more feasible.”

Magnetic materials have long played an important role in data storage technologies. Currently, hard drives store data by magnetising tiny regions made up of many atoms all working together to retain memory. Single-molecule magnets can store information individually and don’t need help from any neighbouring atoms to retain their memory, offering the potential for incredibly high data density. But, until now, the challenge has always been the incredibly cold temperatures needed in order for them to function.

The key to the new magnets’ success is its unique structure, with the element dysprosium located between two nitrogen atoms. These three atoms are arranged almost in a straight line – a configuration predicted to boost magnetic performance but realised now for the first time.

Usually, when dysprosium is bonded to only two nitrogen atoms it tends to form molecules with more bent or irregular shapes. In the new molecule, the researchers added a chemical group called an alkene that acts like a molecular pin, binding to dysprosium to hold the structure in place.

The team at the Australian National University developed a new theoretical model to simulate the molecule’s magnetic behaviour to allow them to explain why this particular molecular magnet performs so well compared to previous designs.

Now, the researchers will use these results as a blueprint to guide the design of even better molecular magnets.

Professor Igor Larrosa has been selected to receive the Robert Robinson Prize, while Professor Perdita Barran is one of this year's three Tilden Prize recipients.

Professor Larrosa and Professor Barran are among the more than 40 Research and Innovation Prize winners, which recognises researchers who have displayed their brilliance when it comes to research and innovation.

Dr Muralidharan Shanmugam and Adam Brookfield have earned the Technical Excellence Prize for their outstanding dedication and technical expertise in running the EPSRC UK National Research Facility for Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectroscopy at The University of Manchester. The prize recognises outstanding contributions to the chemical sciences made by individuals or teams working as technicians or in technical roles. 

Prof Larrosa won his prize for contributions to organic chemistry in the area of ruthenium-catalysed C–C bond formation, and receives £3,000 and a medal.

His research group investigates the development of catalytic processes that enable chemists in industry and academia to synthesise valuable molecules in a more straightforward and sustainable fashion. The main approach in the group involves the application of analytical tools to the detailed study of the modes of operation of transition metal catalysts, and then using this new knowledge to develop more powerful and efficient catalysts.

After receiving the prize, Prof Larrosa said: “It is such an honour to receive the Robert Robinson Award, especially given its history of celebrating transformative contributions to organic chemistry. This recognition reflects the creativity, persistence and collaborative spirit of the brilliant researchers I have had the privilege to work with over the years. I am proud of what we have achieved together, and deeply grateful for the support of my colleagues, mentors and the wider scientific community.”

Professor Barran was recognised with the Tilden Prize for her work on the application of ion mobility mass spectrometry to complex biological systems, and breakthroughs in biomarker discovery – notably non-invasive sampling to diagnose Parkinson's disease.

Her research focuses on developing advanced mass spectrometry techniques to study the structure and behaviour of proteins and other biomolecules, with applications in understanding the fundamentals of biology, the mechanistic reasons for diseases and the development of therapeutics and diagnostics. One of our most notable achievements is the collaborative work with Joy Milne, a retired nurse who possesses an extraordinary sense of smell and noticed a distinct odour associated with Parkinson’s disease.

This observation led to research demonstrating that sebum, an oily substance secreted by the skin, contains compounds that can serve as biomarkers for Parkinson’s. Using mass spectrometry, our team identified specific molecules in sebum that differ between individuals with and without Parkinson’s disease. This discovery has paved the way for the development of a non-invasively sampled and rapid diagnostic test that can detect Parkinson’s disease with high accuracy, potentially allowing for earlier intervention and treatment.

Prof Barran won £5,000 and a medal. 

After receiving the prize, Prof Barran said: “I was absolutely thrilled! This prize was formally won by both my PhD advisors, Harry Kroto and Tony Stace, my undergraduate personal tutor, Dave Garner, and many other brilliant scientists. I felt totally honoured to be among these people who I have always respected. In my case, I attribute winning to the people that I have been privileged to work with. I noted that out of about 200 recipients I was the ninth female. This also made me feel pretty pleased!”

Dr Muralidharan Shanmugam and Adam Brookfield are two EPSRC National Research Facility (NRF) for Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy technical specialists named as the winners of one of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s team prizes, which celebrate discoveries and innovations that push the boundaries of science.

The duo have been recognised for their outstanding dedication and technical expertise in running the facility at The University of Manchester. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) is the spectroscopic technique that is selective and sensitive to unpaired electrons. The unpaired electrons could be intrinsic to the materials studied or could be induced via a process (e.g light/heat/chemically) to provide information on structure, kinetics and much more, with applications covering all areas of physics, chemistry, biology and materials science. The technical team at the EPSRC NRF both maintain the equipment and assist users with the design, implementation and analysis of proposed experiments.

They will share £3,000 and receive a trophy.

 After receiving the prize, Adam Brookfield said: “Both Murali and I are over the moon that our contributions have been recognised by the RSC with this award.

"We're both nosey scientists at heart, we want to provide the best instrument access and knowledge to our users to enable their world-class science. We're in a unique position where we get to see and adapt the facility to the trends and hotspots in research areas, alongside training the next generation of scientific leaders.”

The Royal Society of Chemistry’s prizes have recognised excellence in the chemical sciences for more than 150 years. This year’s winners join a prestigious list of past recipients in the RSC’s prize portfolio, 60 of whom have gone on to win Nobel Prizes for their work, including 2022 Nobel laureate Carolyn Bertozzi and 2019 Nobel laureate John B Goodenough.

Dr Helen Pain, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, said: “The chemical sciences cover a rich and diverse collection of disciplines, from fundamental understanding of materials and the living world, to applications in medicine, sustainability, technology and more. By working together across borders and disciplines, chemists are finding solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

“Our prize winners come from a vast array of backgrounds, all contributing in different ways to our knowledge base, and bringing fresh ideas and innovations. We recognise chemical scientists from every career stage and every role type, including those who contribute to the RSC’s work as volunteers. We celebrate winners from both industry and academia, as well as individuals, teams, and the science itself.

“Their passion, dedication and brilliance are an inspiration. I extend my warmest congratulations to them all.”

For more information about the RSC’s prizes portfolio, visit rsc.li/prizes [rsc.li].

Enzymes are proteins that catalyse chemical reactions, turning one substance into another. In labs, scientists engineer these enzymes to perform specific tasks like the sustainable creation of medicines, and materials. These biocatalysts have many environmental benefits as they often produce higher product quality, lower manufacturing cost, and less waste and reduced energy consumption. But to find ‘the one’, scientists must test hundreds of variants for their effectiveness, which is a slow, expensive, and resource-intensive process.

Research conducted by The University of Manchester in collaboration with AstraZeneca is changing this. The team developed a method for a technique that can test enzyme activity up to 1,000 times faster than traditional methods. The new method, developed over the last eight years and detailed today in the journal Nature Protocols  is called DiBT-MS (Direct Analysis of Biotransformations with Mass Spectrometry).

It builds on an existing technology called DESI-MS (Desorption Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry), a powerful tool that allows scientists to analyse complex biological samples without the need for extensive sample preparation. 

By making small adaptations to the technology, the scientists designed a protocol to directly analyse enzyme-triggered chemical reactions, known as biotransformations, in just minutes. The new method can process 96 samples in just two hours—tasks that would previously take days using older techniques.

It has also been optimised to allow the researchers to reuse sample slides multiple times improving testing efficiency and decreasing the use of solvents and plasticware.

The team has already successfully applied this technique to a range of enzyme-driven reactions, including those enzymes particularly valuable in the development of therapeutics.

Looking ahead, The University of Manchester will continue to explore ways to boost partnerships between laboratories and tackle other challenges that often hinder collaboration, such as geographical barriers and limited funding.

This research was partly funded by a UKRI Prosperity Partnership grant in collaboration with AstraZeneca.

Journal: Nature Protocols

Full title: Direct analysis of biotransformations with mass spectrometry—DiBT-MS

DOI: 10.1038/s41596-025-01161-9

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41596-025-01161-9

Water pollution is one of the growing challenges of modern life. Many everyday items, from medications to cosmetics, leave behind residues that don’t fully break down after use. These pollutants often find their way into water systems, where they disrupt ecosystems and cause harm to plants, animals and humans.

The research, published in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science,  describes a new method using a molecular structure called a metal-organic cage (MOC). These tiny cages act like traps designed to catch and hold harmful molecules commonly found in our water supplies.

While MOCs have been studied before for gas and chemical capture, they are most commonly studied in chemical solvents where their performance differs significantly from that observed in water. Being able to demonstrate capture of established wastewater pollutants in water is thus a step towards the application of these cages for real-world applications.

Jack Wright, a Researcher at The University of Manchester, who completed the research as part of his PhD, said: “Being able to use MOCs in water is a really exciting development. We know how valuable MOCs are for capturing unwanted substances, but until now researchers have not been able to apply them to real-world water systems.

“Many harmful chemicals are difficult to remove from water, and with water pollution becoming a global crisis, this new MOC technology could provide a valuable tool to help clean up water systems and prevent pollutants from entering our ecosystem, particularly in rivers and lakes near urban or industrial areas where wastewater discharge is most common.”

The cages are made up of metal ions connected by organic molecules, forming a hollow pyramid-like structure. These hollow spaces at the centre of these structures are where the MOCs trap specific molecules, like pollutants or gases.

The new structure incorporates chemical groups called sulfonates to make it compatible with water, allowing it to function in real-world water systems, like rivers or wastewater.

It uses a natural effect called hydrophobic binding, where contaminant molecules preferentially “stick” to the inside of the cage rather than staying in the water. This allows the material to selectively capture and hold pollutants, even in challenging water environments.

Dr Imogen Riddell, PhD supervisor and researcher at The University of Manchester, said: “One of the real strengths of this method is its flexibility. The approach we have developed could be used to design other water-soluble MOCs with different sizes or properties. This opens the door to many future applications, including cleaning up different kinds of pollutants, development of green catalysts or even development of drug delivery strategies .”

Now, the researchers will look to further expand the water-soluble cages, to enable capture of more, different contaminants, and are working  towards the development of robust routes to recycling the cages to support their development as sustainable water purification aids.

Just like the proteins in our muscles, which convert chemical energy into power to allow us to perform daily tasks, these tiny rotary motors use chemical energy to generate force, store energy, and perform tasks in a similar way.

The finding, from The University of Manchester and the University of Strasbourg, published in the journal Nature, provides new insights into the fundamental processes that drive life at the molecular level and could open doors for applications in medicine, energy storage, and nanotechnology.

The artificial rotary motors are incredibly tiny—much smaller than a strand of human hair. They are embedded into polymer chains of a synthetic gel and when fuelled, they work like miniature car engines, converting the fuel into waste products, while using the energy to rotate the motor.

The rotation twists the gel’s molecular chains, causing the gel to shrink, storing the energy, much like winding like an elastic band. The stored energy can then be released to perform tasks.

So far, the scientists have demonstrated the motor’s ability to open and close micron-sized holes and speed up chemical reactions.

Professor Leigh added: “Mimicking the chemical energy-powered systems found in nature not only helps our understanding of life but could open the door to revolutionary advances in medicine, energy and nanotechnology.”

The extinction of the Dinosaur was a tumultuous time that included some of the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth’s history, as well as the impact of a 10-15 km wide asteroid. The role these events played in the extinction of the dinosaurs has been fiercely debated over the past several decades.

New findings, published today in the journal Science Advances, suggest that while massive volcanic eruptions in India contributed to Earth’s climate changes, they may not have played the major role in the extinction of dinosaurs, and the asteroid impact was the primary driver of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.

By analysing ancient peats from Colorado and North Dakota in the USA, the researchers – led by The University of Manchester – reconstructed the average annual air temperatures in the 100,000 years leading up to the extinction.

The scientists, including from the University of Plymouth, Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and Denver Museum of Nature and Science in the USA, found that volcanic CO₂ emissions caused a slow warming of about 3°C across this period. There was also a short cold “snap” — cooling of about 5°C — that coincided with a major volcanic eruption 30,000 years before the extinction event that was likely due to volcanic sulphur emissions blocking-out sunlight.

However, temperatures returned to stable pre-cooling temperatures around 20,000 years before the mass extinction of dinosaurs, suggesting the climate disruptions from the volcanic eruptions weren’t catastrophic enough to kill them off dinosaurs.

Dr Lauren O’Connor, lead scientist and now Research Fellow at Utrecht University, said: “These volcanic eruptions and associated CO₂ emissions drove warming across the globe and the sulphur would have had drastic consequences for life on earth. But these events happened millennia before the extinction of the dinosaurs, and probably played only a small part in the extinction of dinosaurs.”

The fossil peats that the researchers analysed contain specialised cell-membrane molecules produced by bacteria. The structure of these molecules changes depending on the temperature of their environment. By analysing the composition of these molecules preserved in ancient sediments, scientists can estimate past temperatures and were able to create a detailed "temperature timeline" for the years leading up to the dinosaur extinction.

Dr Tyler Lyson, scientist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, said: “The field areas are ~750 km apart and both show nearly the same temperature trends, implying a global rather than local temperature signal. The trends match other temperature records from the same time period, further suggesting that the temperature patterns observed reflect broader global climate shifts.”

Bart van Dongen, Professor of Organic Geochemistry at The University of Manchester, added: “This research helps us to understand how our planet responds to major disruptions. The study provides vital insights not only into the past but could also help us find ways for how we might prepare for future climate changes or natural disasters.”

The team is now applying the same approach to reconstruct past climate at other critical periods in Earth’s history.

A group of leading international scientists is calling for a global conversation about the potential creation of "mirror bacteria"—a hypothetical form of life built with biological molecules that are the opposite of those found in nature.

In a new report published today in the journal Science, the researchers, including Professor Patrick Cai, a world leader in synthetic genomics and biosecurity, from The University of Manchester, explain that these mirrored organisms would differ fundamentally from all known life and could pose risks to ecosystems and human health if not carefully managed.

Driven by scientific curiosity, some researchers around the world are beginning to explore the possibility of creating mirror bacteria, and although the capability to engineer such life forms is likely decades away and would require major technological breakthroughs, the researchers are calling for a broad discussion among the global research community, policymakers, research funders, industry, civil society, and the public now to ensure a safe path forward.

Professor Cai said: “While mirror bacteria are still a theoretical concept and something that we likely won’t see for a few decades, we have an opportunity here to consider and pre-empt risks before they arise.

“These bacteria could potentially evade immune defences, resist natural predators, and disrupt ecosystems. By raising awareness now, we hope to guide research in a way that prioritises safety for people, animals, and the environment."

The analysis is conducted by 38 scientists from nine countries including leading experts in immunology, plant pathology, ecology, evolutionary biology, biosecurity, and planetary sciences. The publication in Science is accompanied by a detailed 300-page technical report.

The analysis concluded that mirror bacteria could broadly evade many immune defences of humans, animals, and potentially plants.

It also suggests that mirror bacteria could evade natural predators like viruses and microbes, which typically control bacterial populations. If they were to spread, these bacteria could move between different ecosystems and put humans, animals, and plants at continuous risk of infection.

The scientists emphasise that while speculative, these possibilities merit careful consideration to ensure scientific progress aligns with public safety.

Professor Cai added: “At this stage, it’s also important to clarify that some related technologies, such as mirror-image DNA and proteins, hold immense potential for advancing science and medicine. Similarly, synthetic cell research, which does not directly lead to mirror bacteria, is critical to advancing basic science. We do not recommend restricting any of these areas of research. I hope this is the starter of many discussions engaging broader communities and stakeholders soon. We look forward to hosting a forum here in Manchester in autumn 2025.”

Going forward, the researchers plan to host a series of events to scrutinise their findings and encourage open discussion about the report. For now, they recommend halting any efforts toward the creation of mirror bacteria and urge funding bodies not to support such work. They also propose examining the governance of enabling technologies to ensure they are managed responsibly.

E.lectrode, which aims to improve the way prosthetics for people who have suffered traumatic limb loss work, wowed the judges at the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) 2024 Grand Jamboree.

The non-profit iGEM Foundation hosts an international student competition each year to promote education and collaboration among new generations of synthetic biologists.

Human-machine interfaces are becoming more advanced, with new technologies harnessing the body’s electric signals to control devices.

Artificial limbs, known as myoelectric prosthetics, are directed by electrical signals generated by muscle contractions in the residual limb, which can be translated to motion.

However, heavy batteries and motors in myoelectric prosthetics can cause excessive sweating and make the electrodes slip from their contact points, resulting in discomfort and imprecise limb movement.

To solve the problem, the team proposed using synthetic biology to create tiny specially designed wires that work with skin cells.

They engineered a type of bacteria – Escherichia coli – to express tiny, hair-like structures known as pili (e-pili) found on electricity conducting bacteria called Geobacter sulfurreducens.

By combining the Escherichia coli with a protein-binding peptide, the team created nanowires that specifically target and bind to proteins at the skin’s surface, potentially enhancing the precision of an artificial limb.

The Manchester iGEM team were Damian Ungureanu, Devika Shenoy, Francisco Correia, Janet Xu, Jia Run Dong, Usrat Nubah, Yuliia Anisimova, and Zainab Atique-Ur-Rehman.

Eriko Takano, Professor of Synthetic Biology, said: “I’m delighted our team won gold at the iGEM 2024 Grand Jamboree for an innovation which could make a difference for people who need artificial limbs.

She added: “I have supervised the Manchester iGEM teams together with Professor Rainer Breitling since 2013.

“Our teams, based in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB), have been very successful and have achieved a gold medal all but one of the years that we participated - which is quite an achievement.

“In 2016, the team also scooped the special award for ‘Best Computational Model’ and were shortlisted for the ‘Best Education and Public Engagement’ award.”

This year’s Manchester iGEM team worked in the MIB labs throughout the summer, with financial and logistical support from the MIB, School of Biological Sciences, School of Social Sciences/Department of Social Anthropology, School of Arts Languages and Cultures, and the Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub.

The team also worked with the Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS) to comprehensively explore the social and economic implications of their ideas using a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approach.

The competition provides an interdisciplinary learning opportunity for students outside biology, by encouraging participants to think beyond their lab work.

Damian Ungureanu, second year Biochemistry student, said: “Working with people from different cultural and academic backgrounds has allowed me to substantially develop my communication skills. Even though this was a synthetic biology project, the human practices aspect was just as important as the science. Winning the gold medal felt like the culmination of one year of hard work.”

Devika Shenoy, second year Biomedical Sciences student, said: “I am grateful to have gotten the opportunity to work with so many like-minded individuals and under the guidance of skilled advisors and PIs. iGEM has truly broadened my horizons and understanding of how science and synthetic biology can be used to solve world issues.”

Biocatalysis is a process that uses enzymes as natural catalysts to carry out chemical reactions. Scientists at The University of Manchester and AstraZeneca have developed a new biocatalytic pathway that uses enzymes to produce nucleoside analogues, which are vital components in many pharmaceuticals used to treat conditions like cancer and viral infections.

Typically, producing these analogues is complicated, time consuming and generates significant waste. However, in a new breakthrough, published in the journal Nature Synthesis, the researchers have demonstrated how a "biocatalytic cascade" — a sequence of enzyme-driven reactions — can simplify the process, potentially cutting down production time and reducing environmental impact.

The researchers engineered an enzyme called deoxyribose-5-phosphate aldolase, enhancing its range of functions to efficiently produce different sugar-based compounds, which serve as building blocks for nucleoside-based medicines, such as oligonucleotide therapeutics. These building blocks were combined using additional enzymes to develop a condensed protocol for the synthesis of nucleoside analogues which simplifies the traditional multi-step process to just two or three stages, significantly improving efficiency.

With further refinement, this method could help streamline the production of a wide range of medicines, while significantly reducing their environmental footprint. The team are now continuing this work with the MRC funded Nucleic Acid Therapeutic Accelerator (NATA) manufacturing challenge, which looks to develop sustainable biocatalytic routes towards functionalised nucleosides, nucleotides and oligonucleotides.

The study, led by scientists at The University of Manchester, has revealed that a material known as a metal-organic framework (MOF) - an ultra-porous material - can be modified to capture and filter out significantly more benzene from the atmosphere than current materials in use.

Benzene is primarily used as an industrial solvent and in the production of various chemicals, plastics, and synthetic fibres, but can also be released into the atmosphere through petrol stations, exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke. Despite its widespread applications, benzene is classified as a human carcinogen, and exposure can lead to serious health effects, making careful management and regulation essential.

The research, published in the journal Nature Materials today, could lead to significant improvements in air quality both indoors and outdoors.

MOFs are advanced materials that combine metal centres and organic molecules to create porous structures. They have a highly adjustable internal structure, making them particularly promising for filtering out harmful gases from the air.

The researchers modified the MOF structure – known as MIL-125 – by incorporating single atoms from different elements, including zinc, iron, cobalt, nickel and copper to test which would most effectively capture benzene.

They discovered that adding a single zinc atom to the structure significantly enhanced the material’s efficiency, enabling it to capture benzene even at ultra-low concentrations – measured at parts per million (ppm) – a significant improvement over current materials.

The new material – now known as MIL-125-Zn – demonstrates a benzene uptake of 7.63 mmol per gram of material, which is significantly higher than previously reported materials.

It is also highly stable even when exposed to moisture, maintaining its ability to filter benzene for long periods without losing effectiveness. Tests show that it can continue removing benzene from air even under humid conditions.

As the research progresses, the team will look to collaborate with industry partners to develop this and related new materials, with the potential of integrating it into ready-made devices, such as air purification systems in homes, workplaces, and industrial settings.