Paul Freemont
Vice-chair of the Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein at Imperial College
Professor Paul Freemont is the co-founder of the Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology and Innovation and co-founder and co-director of the National UK Innovation and Knowledge Centre for Synthetic Biology (SynbiCITE - http://synbicite.com/ since 2013). He is also director of the London BioFoundry (since 2016) and Head of the Section of Structural and Synthetic Biology in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College. His research interests are focused on developing synthetic biology foundational tools, automation and biofoundries and cell-free systems for specific applications including biosensing, metabolic and protein engineering and synthetic cells. He is author of over 300 scientific publications and is an elected member of European Molecular Biology Organisation and Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, Royal Society of Chemistry and Royal Society of Medicine and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art. He is currently a council member of the US Engineering Biology Research Consortium (https://ebrc.org/category/bios/council/) and chair of the EBRC Policy and International Engagement Working Group. He is currently co-chair of the newly formed UK Governments Engineering Biology Steering Group and also sits on the UK Governments Biosecurity Leadership Counciland is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Synthetic Biology. He is also currently leading a US-funded Task Force on Engineering Biology Metrics and Technical Standards for Global Bioeconomy. He also co-founded the Global Biofoundry Alliance, an organisation comprising 36 institutions worldwide and was the founding chair. He recently became vice-chair of the Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein at Imperial College which aims to apply engineering biology technologies to alternative food systems. He is also a passionate advocate for the commercialisation of engineering biology and is co-founder of the Imperial spin-out Solena Materials Ltd and also of SynBioVen Ltd, an early-stage seed investment company for engineering biology start-ups in the UK.


