
The broad goal of our research is the synthesis and application of controllable nucleic acids and synthetic cells for biology and medicine

We are an interdisciplinary research group utilising techniques from organic/inorganic synthesis, chemical biology, biochemistry, synthetic biology, and molecular and cellular biology.
News
2023
- May: Khoa’s preprint “Sequence-independent, site-specific incorporation of chemical modifications to generate light-activated plasmids” is now available on bioRxiv!
- April: We’ve published another paper in JACS on “Orthogonal Light-Activated DNA for Patterned Biocomputing within Synthetic Cells“, led by Denis!!!
- April: Jack and Denis’ paper on “Precise, Orthogonal Remote-Control of Cell-Free Systems Using Photocaged Nucleic Acids” has now been published in JACS!!!
- April: Another paper from Denis on “Handcuffed antisense oligonucleotides for light-controlled cell-free expression“, published in Chemical Communications!
- April: Denis’ paper “Accessible light-controlled knockdown of cell-free protein synthesis using phosphorothioate-caged antisense oligonucleotides” has been published in Communications Chemistry!
- April: Great to have Giacomo stay with us for a postdoctoral position!
- February: Welcome to Charlie Newell, a PhD rotation student from the LIDo DTP!
- January: Here’s a new preprint from Jack and Denis on “Precise, orthogonal remote-control of cell-free systems using photocaged nucleic acids“, now on ChemRxiv
2022
- December: A new preprint from Denis on “Light-controlled cell-free protein synthesis using phosphorothioate-caged antisense oligonucleotides” is now on ChemRxiv
- October: The first Master’s students from UCL have now joined the group. Welcome to Romain, Yuting, and Jonathan!
- September: We’re super happy to welcome the first UCL PhD student to the group, Ina Bradic. Looking forward to seeing the amazing things you’ll do!
- September: A paper we collaborated on with the Di Michele group (Imperial), ‘Reaction–Diffusion Patterning of DNA-Based Artificial Cells’, has been published in JACS!
- September: Excited to welcome Sònia to the group as a postdoc
- July: Denis has preprinted his work on “Blue light-activatable DNA for remote control of cell-free logic gates and synthetic cells” on ChemRxiv!
- July: Jeff’s work on “Engineering cellular communication between light-activated synthetic cells and bacteria” is out as a preprint on BioRxiv!
- June: Mike has written the ‘DNA and RNA sequencing’ Chapter of the 4th Edition of Nucleic Acids in Chemistry and Biology that has now been released!
- June: Welcome to Modinat Tijani as an undergraduate summer student from the Black in Cancer Mentorship Programme
- June: Naoki has submitted his Part II thesis, well done! Good luck for the future
- April: Congratulations to Jeff for a successful DPhil viva!
- April: It’s great to welcome Ellen Parkes to the group as a PhD student from the Oxford Inorganic Chemistry for Future Manufacturing Centre for Doctoral Training!
- March: Assala and Mike collaborated with the Di Michele group (Imperial) to produce ‘Reaction-diffusion patterning of DNA-based artificial cells‘, which has been posted on bioRxiv
- March: Mike gave a talk about the group’s research as part of the SynBio Young Scientist Seminar series: Video
- March: Mike has started as a Lecturer in Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the Department of Chemistry, University College London.
- January: We’re excited to welcome Disha Kashyap to our group from the Chemistry in Cells PhD programme!
- January: Jeff and Razia’s review titled ‘Controlling Synthetic Cell-Cell Communication’ has been published in Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences!
2021
- Mike will be starting a Lecturership at UCL Chemistry in 2022!
University College London
Christopher Ingold Building
Department of Chemistry
University College London
20 Gordon Street
London
WC1H 0AJ
In addition, part of our group is still based within the Chemistry Research Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford – Directions and Maps