Michael Booth

Dr Michael J. Booth

Royal Society University Research Fellow

Associate Professor of Chemical Biology and Organic Chemistry

m.j.booth[at]ucl.ac.uk

Biography

Mike studied for an MChem degree at the University of Southampton, which included research projects in the groups of Professor Martin Grossel, Professor Ali Tavassoli, and Professor George Attard. As part of his undergraduate degree, he also undertook a placement at the Université de Montréal, Canada, under the supervision of Professor Stephen Michnick. He carried out his PhD at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian, developing sequencing techniques for modified cytosine bases. Mike then worked in the group of Professor Hagan Bayley at the University of Oxford as a postdoctoral researcher and Junior Research Fellow at Merton College, Oxford. At Oxford, he developed light-activated DNA technology to control cell-free protein expression within synthetic cells. He started his independent research career in 2018 with a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford. In 2022, he moved to the Department of Chemistry at University College London to become a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) and in 2024 was promoted to Associate Professor.