Early Career Researchers Meet, Greet & Talks

Join our monthly meets to meet fellow Early Career Researchers from across the University interested in biology, engineering, design, computer science, bioethics and more. This is a great opportunity to meet ECRs from other schools and departments, share knowledge and ideas, establish connections and collaborations and find out more about EngBio activities such as funding calls and support.

Each session will host 1-2 lightening talks from ECRs covering research, tools & technologies, and fields & applications of synthetic and engineering biology. This will be followed by informal discussion (and free food and drink!).

Our next event will be  Monday 21 October, 3pm at the JCBC Lecture Theatre, Biomedical Campus featuring:

Establishing a synthetic orthogonal replication system enables accelerated evolution in E.coli

Rongzhen Tian, Jason Chin Lab, MRC LMB

Rongzhen Tian is currently a postdoctoral scientist in Jason Chin's lab at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB). He is also a member of Trinity College Postdoctoral Society at University of Cambridge. He dedicated himself to the research area of synthetic biology during his master's and PhD studies, specializing in the development of bacterial continuous evolution tools and expression regulation elements via diverse approaches. In November 2022, he joined Jason Chin's lab, where he established the synthetic bacterial orthogonal replication system in E. coli based on a lytic phage. It demonstrates a route to selectively and rapidly mutating and selecting on only the DNA of interest – to create proteins with new functions in a few days – in live cells in which the genome mutation rate is unchanged.
Now he is focusing on continuous evolution, reprogramming translation and genetic code expansion.

The Vi Capsule of Typhoid Bacteria (Salmonella typhi) and its role in pathogenicity- Using Simple Bacteriology techniques to help answer complex Microbiological questions!

Derek Pickard, Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology & Infectious Disease (CITIID)

I started Microbiology Research at the Wellcome Foundation Labs in Beckenham, Kent in 1976 when school-leavers with just two average grade A Levels (one C and one E!) where accepted and spent two years doing an HNC in Applied Biology at Bromley College. I declined the chance to do a BSc! I entered the field just as Classical Bacteriology was being influenced and shaped by the new field of Molecular Biology and its world of Plasmids, Restriction enzymes and bacterial transformations. I was lucky to work in the groups of Dr William Turner on Staphylococcal Vaccines and then from 1983 onwards with Prof. Gordon Dougan when he joined the Bacteriology Labs. We took the breakthroughs made in those labs on Salmonella infections, Tetanus toxins and Whooping Cough associated proteins to help create new Vaccines, and used applied research tools emerging from Molecular Biology on these same diseases. I gained a PhD from Imperial College in 2003 on the Salmonella Pathogenicity Island-7 (SPI-7).

The story I wish to tell involves a Capsule that surrounds the bacteria that causes Typhoid fever called the Vi antigen and present on SPI-7. It is an important component of today’s Typhoid Vaccines…

For questions of queries, please contact Vicky Reid at coordinator@engbio.cam.ac.uk.