People

Dr Jose Jiménez (Group leader)

Dr Jose Jiménez is a molecular biologist that earned his Ph.D. in environmental microbiology in 2006 working for Spanish Research Council (CIB-CSIC). After that he moved into systems and synthetic biology of bacteria in postdoctoral stays in the National Center for Biotechnology (CSIC; Spain), Harvard University (USA) as a Fellow for the Foundational Questions in Evolutionary Biology program and the Synthetic Biology Center at MIT (USA). Jose was appointed as Lecturer in Synthetic Biology in 2014 at the University of Surrey and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2018. He joined the Dpt. of Life Sciences at Imperial College London in 2020. He was promoted to Reader in 2023.

Dr Jose Jiménez (Group leader)

Dr Jose Jiménez is a molecular biologist that earned his Ph.D. in environmental microbiology in 2006 working for Spanish Research Council (CIB-CSIC). After that he moved into systems and synthetic biology of bacteria in postdoctoral stays in the National Center for Biotechnology (CSIC; Spain), Harvard University (USA) as a Fellow for the Foundational Questions in Evolutionary Biology program and the Synthetic Biology Center at MIT (USA). Jose was appointed as Lecturer in Synthetic Biology in 2014 at the University of Surrey and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2018. He joined the Dpt. of Life Sciences at Imperial College London in 2020 where he was appointed to Reader in 2023.

Perrine Dalby

(PhD candidate)

Perrine is a member of the EPSRC CDT in Biodesign Engineering based at Imperial College London. Perrine is interested in understanding and engineering the transcriptional and translational machinery to optimise the allocation of cellular resources for gene expression. Perrine is using natural and orthogonal gene expression systems to mitigate the impact of genetic circuits and pathways on the cellular fitness.

Edeline D’Souza

(PhD candidate)

Edeline is a biologist in the Quantum Biology DTC at the University of Surrey, which is focused on investigating non-trivial quantum effects in biological processes, and is funded by the Leverhulme Trust.  Edeline is interested in the understanding of the role of quantum behaviour in cryptochromes, the protein involved in magnetoreception and navigation, both from fundamental and applied viewpoints. She is carrying out part of her research in the National Physical Laboratory under the supervision of Dr Alex Jones

Joanne Benton

(Project manager)

Dr Joanne Benton is the project manager for MIPLACE (Microbial Integration of Plastics in the Circular Economy).  Her background is in Plant Physiology and Crop Protection and she gained her PhD from The Nottingham Trent University.  She then coordinated an international research programme investigating the effects of ozone pollution on crops and natural vegetation at the same university.  Following this, she became the business manager for a sustainable living consultancy based in London.

Alice Banks

(Postdoctoral researcher)

Dr Alice Banks is a research fellow in synthetic biology working on the MIPLACE project for microbial integration of plastics in the circular economy. Her research focusses on engineering microbial communities using polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyurethane (PU) as feedstock. She completed her PhD in fungal molecular biology at the University of Bristol and then moved to work as a postdoctoral research associate at Newcastle University investigating cell-free protein synthesis systems.

Daniel Boros

(PhD candidate)

Daniel is a member of the EPSRC in BioDesign Engineering based at Imperial College London. Daniel is interested in developing molecular tools for lab directed evolution. In his project Daniel is leveraging the ability of retro elements to edit genomic DNA for diverse applications in Synthetic Biology.

Syeda Begum

(PhD candidate)

Syeda is conducting a PhD project investigating the tradeoffs between growth and gene expression in mammalian cells. This project is a collaboration with LGC and it is sponsored by the Doctoral Training Programme of the Dpt. of Life Sciences at Imperial College London.

Said Muñoz-Montero

(PhD candidate)

Said is conducting a PhD project investigating the dynamics of microbial populations in fluctuating environments with a focus on antibiotic resistance mechanisms and their transmission. For this project Said was awarded by Imperial College with a prestigious President’s Scholarship.

Satya Prakash

(Postdoctoral researcher)

Satya is a postdoctoral fellow leading our research activities in SECRETed. Satya’s work focuses on the automated assembly and optimisation of combinatorial pathways and non-conventional microbial chassis for the production of novel siderophores and surfactants.

Zheren Zhang

(Postdoctoral researcher)

Zheren is a postdoctoral fellow based at the University of Oxford working with Prof. Stuart West and holds a visiting researcher position at Imperial College London. Zheren is interested in evolutionary processes across biological scales. In particular he is investigating the molecular mechanisms behind metabolic labour division in bacterial populations.

Former members
  • Dr Jaime Gonzalez (now postdoctoral fellow at the University of Lausanne; Switzerland)
  • Dr Juhyun Kim (now Assistant Professor at Kyungpook National University; South Korea)
  • Dr Alex Smith (now postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge)
  • Dr Manuel Salvador (now project manager at Idener SL)
  • Dr Maria Getino (now postdoctoral fellow at Imperial College London)
  • Dr Elizabeth Saunders (now at BBSRC)