EngBio Early Career Researchers, Meet, Greet and Talks

EngBio Early Career Researchers Meetup is back 

Join our monthly meets to meet fellow Early Career Researchers from across the University interested in biology, engineering, design, computer science, bioethics and more. This is a great opportunity to meet Early Career Researchers from other schools and departments, share knowledge and ideas, establish connections and collaborations and find out more about EngBio activities such as funding calls and support 

Each session will host 1-2 lightning talks from Early Career Researchers covering research, tools & technologies, and fields & applications of synthetic and engineering biology. This will be followed by informal discussion (and free light lunch).

We are welcoming talks from Alex Chalk and Gareth Girling 

Alex Chalk, MRC Toxicology Unit

Comprehensive gene editing assessment and DNA repair kinetics using CLEAR- time dPCR 

Cleavage and Lesion Evaluation via Absolute Real-time dPCR (CLEAR-time) is a modular digital PCR platform that quantifies double-strand breaks, indels, large deletions, donor integrations, and other chromosomal aberrations within gene-edited cell populations. This comprehensive profiling provides an unprecedented view of genome editing outcomes, enabling optimisation for desired editing products and insights into repair pathway usage. When coupled with time-series sampling, CLEAR-time supports the derivation of rate coefficients describing editor activity and DNA repair dynamics, revealing deeper insights into editing efficiency and recurrent target-site cleavage activities. Together, these features position CLEAR-time as a quantitative bioengineering tool for transforming genome editing into a measurable, optimizable process.

Gareth Girling, Generative and Synthetic Genomic Programme, Welcome Sanger Institute 

Paired prime editing: a novel approach for interrogating genome function 

The CRISPR Cas9 system has revolutionised molecular biology in recent years but is not without its inadequacies. New editing technologies such as prime editing have built on the success of CRISPR Cas9 and provide far greater precision when genome engineering. Here we demonstrate the engineering power of paired prime editing for making long precise deletions in a pooled screening modality and in doing so we highlight that a large proportion of non-coding DNA surrounding essential genes is dispensable for cell growth

For registration 

For any queries please contact Vicky Reid 

For further information about the EngBio Early Career Researchers