Congratulations to Cohort 2’s Marjorie Watts who won the Best Poster Award at ECMTB 2026 (European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology) in Austria earlier this month. 👏

Our Cohort 1 student Robin Henry's US conference trip didn't stop at SEED! Robin also presented his research at the International Workshop on Bio-Design Automation (IWBDA), where he shared a talk on Myriad, his GPU-accelerated platform for closed-loop single-cell experiments.

In June Cohort 1 student, Robin Henry, attended the Synthetic Biology: Engineering, Evolution, & Design (SEED) conference at the Colorado Convention Centre in Denver. SEED is the world's largest academic synthetic biology conference. This year's programme covered everything from cell-free systems

It was a great example of how biology, data engineering and AI come together to solve the world’s biggest problems. Thank you so much Saif for visiting us in Bristol and thank you to Johan Guillen Meza for arranging the visit.

A few weeks ago, cohort 2 student Aoife attended London Protein Design Day at Imperial College London. The conference showcased new research, platforming master’s students to principal investigators working in immunoinformatics, generative model development, and enzyme and biosensor engineering.

This week, we caught up with Maria Tasca from Cohort 1 in Bristol, to learn about the Data Hazards workshop she ran at the AIBIO conference in Aberdeen. ⚠️ Maria introduced the concept of hazard labels for data science; what they are, how they are used, and their importance in data science projects.

...and opportunities of process scale-up while creating valuable new connections across the field. As one of the two lead organisers, Alfie helped shape the programme, secure speakers, and hosted the biology track on the day. A fantastic achievement! Well done to Alfie and everyone involved! 👏

In the first year, EngBio CDT students work on two 11-week projects.These projects are inter-disciplinary & aligned with the four major Engineering Biology research areas: -Robust methods for bioengineering -Rational biomolecular & biosystems design -Evolution-guided biodesign -Digital cells & AI

As part of their Innovation training, last Friday, Cohort 2 took part in a ‘Pitch and Presentation’ session led by Dave Jarman, @bristoluni.bsky.social Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Last week, the EngBio CDT attended the Festival of Nature in Bristol as part of their RRI training. Working with the Bristol Children's Scrapstore, they created interactive displays to educate the public about Engineering Biology and its potential place in nature and society.

2026’s EngBio CDT Summer School has come to a close! A huge thank you to all involved in making this year’s Summer School possible. From speakers to session leads, from students to organisers, it’s been a pleasure to host everyone and participate in such an enjoyable and inspiring few days.

It’s the last day of our EngBio Summer School! We’re starting this am with a workshop from Dr. Katy R Mahoney exploring strategies & techniques to reduce that familiar feeling of imposter syndrome. Then we’ll look at how to get our point across & communicate effectively in different PhD settings.

We’ve been joined by Julie Castleman from the The Charlie Waller Trust to explore how we can protect our wellbeing in an often demanding and challenging research world. We’ve been exploring how to identify our personal stressors, the coping strategies we can use, and who to lean on for help.

Day 2 of the EngBio CDT Summer School has commenced! This morning, we’re thrilled to welcome our very own Jack Dalton and Vivenne Kuh who are leading a session on Responsible Research in Practice: tackling biosecurity challenges.

Over lunch, our Cohort 2 students showcased their recent short projects through poster sessions and this afternoon, we continued our programme of inspiring Engineering Biology talks:

A team of students then outlined their public engagement plans, working with the Open City Lab at We The Curious. We’re looking forward to more talks and discussion this afternoon!

Today, we’ll be joined by guest speakers from academia and industry, and our students will be showcasing their research through presentations & posters. A huge thanks to everyone taking part in the Summer School. We’re looking forward to a collaborative, productive, and inspiring few days ahead.

Meet our student representatives!👋 Our student reps have an important role in positively influencing the student experience in the EngBio CDT, by speaking with their fellow cohorts and providing feedback to the CDT team. We would like to thank our student reps for all of their hard work! 🌟

We caught up with Jack Dalton, a Cohort 1 student at @ox.ac.uk about his work in the Steel Lab: using automated evolution machines + AI co-scientists to steer bacterial evolution faster and more predictably for biomanufacturing, food, drugs, and even future space applications.

Cohort 2 attended RRI training last week at Belmont Estate. BE’s mission focuses on environmental restoration, sustainable food production, climate action & reconnecting people with nature. Our students took time to consider how their research impacts nature & how we can all become better ancestors.

The Magdalen College Choir sang the Hymnus Eucharisticus and concluded with the 1930s classic Over the Rainbow to the packed crowd below. Morris dancing and folk singing then followed across the city. (Photos are from a previous year, as the 5:30am start doesn't quite mix with a work day for me!)

In March, student Marj Watts attended the British Applied Maths Colloquium (BAMC) at the University of East Anglia. Marj presented her masters dissertation via a poster. The poster was on modelling heterogeneous cell migration of chemotactic cells that generate the chemotactic gradient locally

In December, Robin Henry attended the CDC conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil! A fantastic opportunity to engage with leading researchers and explore cutting-edge developments in control theory and its applications. Robin said: I mostly attended talks from the "Control theory and Methods for...

... potential competitors and industry trends. Following the training, students visited the BioEscalator, Oxford's thriving incubator for fast-growing biomedical companies. Thank you to Bryan S. from Innovex Management and the BioEscalator team for delivering insightful and engaging sessions!

The EngBio CDT is cross-training all students in biological and computational skills to ensure fluency across both areas, and works closely with industrial partners to understand and address skills gaps in the sector.

Last week, Kerstin participated in a panel discussion at the Advanced Therapies Congress, exploring what skills we need to efficiently deliver impactful therapeutics and diagnostics in the advanced therapy space.

demographics in our activities. By the end of the day, we had several different prototypes of our activities. We're looking forward to refining these prototypes and meeting everyone at the Festival of Nature in June!

Yesterday was International Women’s Day (8th March). Women continue to be underrepresented in scientific research worldwide. In 2022, just 31.1% of researchers were women, highlighting persistent gender gaps in the field.

From agriculture and biomanufacturing to medicine and computational biology, it’s a great reminder of the power of interdisciplinary engineering 👩‍🔬

In February, Bristol held their annual Light Festival which showcases the city’s vibrancy and creativity. Just another reason why we love being in Bristol! Our CDT manager, Joanna, took this photo when visiting the balloon installation last week. 🎈