Dame Angela McLean's speech at the Royal Institution
Source: gov.uk (2025-05-02)

This is a check-against-delivery text of the speech 'Discourse: The future of engineering biology' delivered by Government Chief Scientific Adviser Professor Dame Angela McLean at The Royal Institution on 25 April 2025.

I want to start by asking you all to think about how you got here tonight.

I don’t mean in some philosophical sense; that kind of question is better left to other speakers. I mean literally: how did you make your way, here, to the Royal Institution?

If you’re anything like me, you relied on Google Maps to show you the way (although I may be obliged to say “Other providers are available”). Perhaps you also used your phone to pay for the bus or Tube.

If you’re joining us online – hello to you all! – you’ll be watching on a phone, tablet or laptop. So, one way or another, most of us made it here thanks to 1 of these devices.

Now I want you to think about the battery in your phone. Chances are it’s a lithium-ion battery. And if you came in an electric car or bus, you would also have depended on a lithium-ion battery.

The advantage of lithium-ion batteries compared to traditional alkaline batteries – the kind you may still put in the back of your TV remote – is that they can provide more energy and are rechargeable. People old enough to have depended entirely on alkaline batteries for many more devices besides the TV remote will remember the frustration when they ran out of power – and trying to cobble together another set of batteries to get them working again. Our phones may go dead, but it’s simple and convenient to recharge them.

But there is a downside, namely all the metals that go into making these modern batteries and electrical products, including lithium, cobalt and other rare earth elements.

Getting hold of these metals is hard. Most are currently extracted and purified from compounds in rocks, a process which can be very energy-intensive as well as very polluting.

Recycling and reusing these same metals is also hard.

This is the periodic table of the elements created by Dmitri Mendeleev, first published in 1869 and subsequently presented right here at the Royal Institution some 20 years later.

How many elements do you think are used in electronic products?

Electronic products can contain up to 60 different elements – around 52 of them metals (those are the elements highlighted in blue on the slide) – and we currently rely on inefficient and environmentally damaging methods to isolate and recycle individual metals.

Indeed, many electronic items cannot be recycled. They simply go to landfill. This is already a serious issue and it’s 1 that will only get worse as global demand for electronics increases.

Well, what if I told you that researchers here in the UK have identified naturally occurring bacteria, which have the ability to extract and recycle metals from this sort of waste?

Hats off to anyone in the audience familiar with the strain of bacteria called Shewanella oneidensis MR-1, which can remove manganese from lithium-ion batteries. Or the bacteria Desulfovibrio alaskensis, which is capable of precipitating cobalt out from a mixture of the different metals and chemicals in lithium-ion batteries.

I’m only aware of these bacteria thanks to amazing research taking place in the UK, including by Louise Horsfall’s group at the University of Edinburgh. Louise’s team have been collaborating with researchers from across the country as part of the ReLib project, which stands for the reuse and recycling of lithium-ion batteries.

Actually, 1 of the funders for this project is the Faraday Institution, the UK’s flagship battery research programme named for the great Michael Faraday whose desk is in front of me.

On his desk I have a few items to use to help explain battery recycling.

Louise’s team have primarily been focused on recycling metals from large lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles. However, they can be pretty large – too large for me to bring here tonight. Nevertheless, many of you will know what a lithium-ion battery looks like from your phone – and the science behind how we can recycle these batteries is no different.

Once lithium-ion batteries reach the end of their life they can be disassembled and shredded using mechanical methods to produce this. In this case, the shredded material has come from part of the battery called the cathode, which contains lots of the metals we want to recycle.

Once we’ve dissolved this shredded material using chemical or biological methods, we get this solution here… called metal leachate. This contains the useful metals we’re interested in and it’s at this point that we introduce the bacteria I mentioned earlier.

The bacteria collect and excrete specific metals as tiny nanoparticles which we can recover to give us something like this… which is manganese that Louise’s team has produced in the way I’ve just described from this exact process! We can then use this manganese to build new batteries or other devices.

You might be wondering what do we do with what’s left behind in the leachate solution. Well, after the bacteria have done their work we are left with this biobrine which is rich in lithium – and resembles what you might find in lithium deposits in South America. This too can be used to make new batteries.

And I’m not just talking about using a few types of microorganism to improve the extraction and recycling of 1 or 2 metals. There appear to be lots of different microbes out there capable of extracting different metals. Indeed, it’s possible that the bacteria have evolved this capability in a way that detoxifies their own environment, collecting up and excreting harmful metals and so not being poisoned.

So if we use combinations of these bacteria and we tweak the characteristics of these strains, we can increase the efficiency with which metals are purified and recycled from waste.

That word tweaking is important and it doesn’t do justice to the science involved. What we’re really talking about is engineering existing microbes to extract and recycle metals.

Extracting metals from the ground is a hugely expensive and damaging process. It looks rather like this:

What you can see on the bottom part of this slide is an open cast manganese mine.

And once we’re finished with products needing such metals, we throw them away. The top part of this slide shows a landfill site after a fire. There have been reports of lithium-ion batteries causing fires at landfill sites across the world.

With engineering biology, we only need to remove metals from the ground once; thereafter they can become part of a genuine circular economy through continual re-use.

We use physics, chemistry and engineering to get them out of the ground but then we can and should use biology and engineering to keep recycling them.

And this is just 1 example of what is within our grasp thanks to the power and potential of the scientific field called engineering biology.

I’m speaking about engineering biology this evening because I believe it could be the most significant branch of science for decades to come.

I want to explain why I think that’s the case – and to share my excitement about this field for 2 main reasons.

The first is that the science and engineering involved in this field is, frankly, beautiful.

The second – and more important – reason is that both current and future applications will make a huge difference to the everyday lives of people in the UK and across the world.

I’m here to try to convince you of both these things, but if I can convince you of only 1, I want it to be the latter.

I’m really keen for people to recognise that the scientists and engineers in this field are working to produce solutions that most, if not all, of us can agree are necessary… urgently necessary even.

To kick off, I ought to say that – as Government Chief Scientific Adviser – my role is to advise the Prime Minister and the Government on all matters related to science, technology and engineering.

The job – and the advice – is a mixture of proactive and reactive work. It covers everything from providing scientific and technical advice during a national emergency to explaining the risks and opportunities around emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and engineering biology.

Now, in getting to grips with the promise of engineering biology, I did have a little bit of a head start.

I am a mathematical biologist by background. My own research focused on using mathematical models to improve our understanding of the evolution and spread of infections like measles and HIV.

I don’t, however, have any background in engineering, nor in biochemistry. So I have had to get up to speed over the past few years.

At this point let me explain what engineering biology actually is.

Engineering biology involves applying engineering to biological processes in order to bend biology to our will.

In other words, it’s the practice of using ideas and tools taken from engineering to design and modify living organisms or biological systems.

Using tools and ideas developed over recent decades, the goal is to develop new materials and energy sources; to improve animal, plant and human health; to address environmental issues in new and sustainable ways.

What we’re talking about is the ability to harness and control biology predictably, repeatably and – I’ve said this already – usefully. Sometimes that will mean working with what’s already available in nature; at other times, it will involve genetic modification techniques.

Let me unpack some of this a bit further.

Firstly, on the engineering side. Here, I want to start with the design-build-test-learn cycle – DBTL for short.

This approach has been central to product development in engineering disciplines for some time. It drives continuous refinement and innovation, making research and development faster and more efficient.

In engineering biology, design-build-test-learn is brought to bear on biological processes – by which I mean the activities occurring within living organisms.

Image of the design-build-test-learn cycle. Each element is located in a different quarter and all 4 quarters make up a circle.

Essentially, I’m talking about designing something biological – like a version of a cell, or it could be a biological process (such as cell division) or a genetically-engineered system…

Then building it, maybe in the lab…

Then testing it to see how well it works…

Before finally, and perhaps most importantly, learning from what did and didn’t work and then feeding the lessons into another round of design, making improvements again and again around this cycle, towards an end goal.

This looks like being a more efficient way of recycling metals, to use the case study I gave at the start.

And why is this approach necessary? Well, because living organisms are highly complex, with many different parts and networks of interactions between those parts.

One could argue that physical or chemical systems are a bit more straightforward, more predictable, more easily quantifiable. We’ve been using this design-build-test-learn process to bend chemistry and physics to our will for more than a century – very successfully.

The complex and often unpredictable nature of biological systems means we need to work through multiple permutations to get to a desired outcome – and that’s where the engineering in engineering biology comes in.

If we can get this approach right – and I’m going to offer some further examples later showing where we already are – then we have the power to systematically develop biological systems to meet some of the biggest challenges we face.

Let me be more definitive. If the nineteenth century was chemistry’s golden age, and the twentieth century was the same thing for physics, I believe the twenty-first century should be the golden age for biology.

Why am I so optimistic?

This century can belong to biology because of a series of extraordinary advances in scientific understanding.

Where to begin? Of course, we have spent thousands of years modifying the living world.

But I’m not going to go all the way back to the domestication of wild crops. I’m not even going back to Darwin and Mendel.

Instead I’ll start with Watson, Crick and Wilkins – as well as the often overlooked Rosalind Franklin; 3 of the 4 received a Nobel Prize in 1962. By determining the structure of DNA, they discovered what we can call the language of biology.

Understanding the structure of DNA opened the door to reading this complex language, then editing it, then actually writing it ourselves.

Our ability to read DNA took a big step forward thanks to Walter Gilbert and Fred Sanger, who shared half of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Gilbert and Sanger did lots of work to understand the building blocks of DNA – the nucleotide alphabet of biology, if you like.

The next game-changer was in 1983 when an American biochemist, Kary Mullis, developed something called the Polymerase Chain Reaction. Better known as PCR, it is a laboratory technique that’s used to make copies of particular pieces of DNA. Think of it as a photocopier for DNA.

The technique lets scientists easily – and cheaply – create many millions of copies of DNA segments from very small original amounts – and that makes reading the DNA in a sample possible even if it is only there in tiny amounts.

You will all have become familiar with PCR during the Covid pandemic, when it was used to make many copies of the viral genetic material to allow reliable diagnosis of a Covid infection. That was the test where you did a swab, popped it in a test tube and then sent it away in the post. It was particularly important early on, before we had home testing kits.

The invention of PCR also earned a share of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry – that’s DNA Nobel number 3.

Fast forward 10 years to 2003 and the completion of the Human Genome Project. Researchers across the world spent some 13 years cataloguing the precise sequence of all the DNA in the cells of a human being. It was a huge effort and that first whole genome sequence of a human cost an estimated £2.5 billion.

Thankfully – but also remarkably – sequencing technology has come on leaps and bounds over the past 20 years. Now, it is possible to sequence the same amount of DNA analysed by the Human Genome Project in a single day – and for just a few hundred pounds! We’ve even developed pocket-sized machines which are capable of reading DNA in real-time.

In fact, I have 1 here: a portable sequencing device made by Oxford Nanopore. You simply add your sample into the middle here – this contains the sensor that will help to read the DNA sequence of your sample. Then simply close the lid and press go. And the results are delivered straight to your laptop via a USB-C cable which plugs into the end here.

This is useful for situations where we can’t send off a sample for analysis and wait days for the results – if, say, we’re urgently trying to identify the cause of an infection in some far-flung corner of the world.

So… we’ve learned to amplify DNA using PCR and we’ve learned to read DNA – fast – using rapid sequencing technologies.

We’ve also started learning – and do emphasise “started” – to accurately and precisely “edit” DNA.

Previously, when we wanted to do this, the methods were somewhat cruder – such as gene guns, which were used to literally fire DNA into cells.

We now have tools like CRISPR-Cas9 (another Nobel prize-winning technology developed by Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna), and we can now take a targeted portion of DNA and change it very accurately in specific places. Some people have compared CRISPR to using a pair of genetic scissors.

Some of you might be wondering whether engineering biology is any different from another common term: synthetic biology. They are often applied interchangeably, although different countries interpret them in different ways.

The way I see it, synthetic biology refers to tools like CRISPR, used to design and build new biological components. Engineering biology is taking these tools – with or without genetic modification – and using the DBTL cycle to apply these tools at scale to find solutions to problems in the world around us.

There are still challenges with the accuracy of such tools, but the possibilities are vast.

We know that certain diseases are caused by mutations in a single gene. Sickle cell disease, for example, is caused by mutations in the beta-globin gene, resulting in red blood cells which are misshapen. As a result, these red cells don’t flow around the body as well as they should. This can cause those affected – roughly 17,500 people in the UK – to suffer from anaemia as well as complications like terrible pain and organ damage.

In the past, the only treatment was to rely on regular blood transfusions or a bone marrow transplant, neither of which comes without risks or complications. However, researchers have been using CRISPR to precisely edit the gene responsible for sickle cell with great success – so much so that, in January this year, the treatment was approved for use in the NHS as the world’s first gene-editing treatment for blood disorders.

And this is just 1 of many gene-editing clinical trials going on right now, including treatments for liver disease, heart disease and some cancers.

The possibilities are not confined to human diseases. We can use these genetic scissors to develop crops that are better at withstanding drought and more resistant to insects, so we don’t have to rely so much on pesticides.

And it’s these tools that are being used to modify the bacteria designed for metal recycling that I spoke about at the start.

Now, it would be remiss of me to talk about the tools of the future without mentioning AI and the transformative impacts it could have.

A prime example is the challenge of understanding and predicting how proteins fold up intricately and precisely in all of our cells. Decoding this process is something scientists have been trying to achieve for decades.

And in 2018, DeepMind came along with its AI model AlphaFold. AlphaFold has since been used to calculate the structure of hundreds of millions of proteins. And, yes, it earned the UK’s Demis Hassabis a share of last year’s Nobel prize in chemistry.

Timeline starting with images of James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin above the year 1962. Images of Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger are next to the year 1980. Image of Kary Mullis is next to the year 1993. Images of Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna are below the year 2020 and an image of Demis Hassabis is below the year 2024.

All that’s missing on my timeline now is the capacity to design a new protein from scratch de novo. That will bring us into the realm of being able to write the language of biology – designing and printing a sequence of synthetic DNA to produce a protein with the properties that we want, from scratch.

I’ve just been talking about how technologies such as AI, and tools such as CRISPR, are helping to broaden the range of biological powers at our disposal and increase our ability to design and optimise biological systems.

And all this comes with valid concerns about risks. An example which springs to my mind was when scientists in Australia created a version of a mouse virus back in 2001 that instead of causing the normal mild symptoms, killed all of the mice within nine days. They were conducting some innocent genetic engineering research to try and make a mouse contraceptive vaccine for pest control and inadvertently found a way of creating a much more deadly version of the mousepox virus. Unsurprisingly, this made quite a splash in the media – although I think it was good that such a story was not buried.

The point I want to make is that we must develop the right practices and regulation so that we ensure that research is carried out safely and responsibly but we do not stifle innovation.

We refer to this as “responsible innovation” and it is 1 of the pillars of our government vision for engineering biology. That has given rise to new guidance on which genetic sequences people should be allowed to order for their research – welcome progress.

Having the UK take a lead in this kind of responsible innovation – where we are thinking carefully about the desired benefits of our research as well as about how to avoid negative impacts – lets us manage the risks and harness the wealth of opportunities that engineering biology can offer.

There are also other challenges to overcome. What’s standing in the way of us exploiting engineering biology for good? I won’t dwell for long on this, because you’re here to hear about science, not policy – but it is important to talk about the barriers.

We’ve already spoken about proper regulation for engineering biology. We also need to have proper ways of funding the basic research that drives this wonderful new technology and also the application of that research that lets us solve real-world problems. Then there’s also the task of making more people aware of the potential for progress here.

But a key area for me – and also a common issue across all areas of science and technology – is making sure we have the right skills in our future workforce to perform the future jobs that come with new technologies.

The skill set for engineering biology is particularly broad: the field is a combination many different skill-sets and mindsets. Mostly we train people either to become biologists or to become engineers, and for this technology we need people who can think with both those mindsets. So we need to think about a pipeline which starts in schools, with children getting the right grounding in key subjects – and children also hearing about the exciting careers they can pursue through developing and using the technologies I’ve talked about.

I think it’s vital that we don’t think exclusively about technical skills: communication skills are extremely important too. It’s a wonderful thing to do pioneering, cutting-edge research but we also need to be able to explain what that’s about and why people should want it.

So far, I’ve told you a bit about what engineering biology is and how we’ve got to this point, poised for biological century. I’ve also talked a bit about risks and challenges, but I think it’s now time to delve further into the applications that I think are so inspiring.

Today, I launched a report called “Engineering Biology Aspirations”. It’s our attempt to share our excitement about the possibilities that this technology opens up – and we want to share it with everyone, my colleagues inside government and also much more widely.

It contains case studies, written by UK-based experts, that illustrate some of the diverse problems we can address using engineering biology. Microbial metal extraction is 1 of them. I want to highlight some others during the rest of this talk – and to recognise some of the amazing research taking place in the UK.

One of the reasons that I commissioned the report is that all too often, when someone mentions engineering biology or synthetic biology, the examples will involve vaccines or medicines.

Of course those are fantastic, important applications: with the Covid pandemic such a fresh memory, we are all acutely aware of the life-saving importance of rapid and effective vaccine production. And I’m in awe of those researchers who can edit the gene that causes sickle cell disease.

But I want to make sure that we also shine a light on the true breadth of opportunities that engineering biology presents, not only in health, but across agriculture, materials, chemicals, energy, defence.

So, let’s shift gear and think about the fashion industry. Unlike metal recycling, it’s a sector familiar to all of us. We all buy and wear clothes, but we don’t often stop to think about where they’ve come from, how they’ve been made, and at what cost to the environment.

Putting aside issues around workforce conditions and waste, the fashion industry is 1 of the world’s largest polluters, responsible for up to 8 per cent of carbon emissions globally…

Not to mention the pollution generated in the form of clothing and textiles dumped in landfills, like this 1 in Bangladesh, never to biodegrade.

At the same time, 1/5 of the pollution of clean water around the world is caused by dyeing and treating textiles.

And there’s also growing awareness of the environmental damage caused by the microfibres shed by polyester clothing.

So it’s no surprise that plenty of researchers and companies here in the UK and beyond are seeking inspiration from biological processes to make new materials that don’t rely on fossil fuels or on animal products such as leather.

You may have been wondering why there are bottled drinks and a handbag beside each other on the Faraday desk. Well, they’re made of essentially the same material.

The process of making both items starts with microbes that naturally produce a material called nanocellulose.

In the case of Mogu Mogu – a coconut water drink you might find in your local supermarket – the nanocellulose is responsible for the lumps of jelly you can see in this bowl.

It is a polymer produced through fermentation – the same process used to make beer.

Now, 1 company I visited last year is called Modern Synthesis, based in South London and founded by Jen Keane and Ben Reeve. They’re aiming to develop scalable solutions to meet the fashion industry’s need for high-performing, versatile materials that don’t pollute the planet.

Modern Synthesis make nanocellulose fibres and then combine them with textiles such as cotton or linen to create new composites. These are then finished with natural coatings like waxes and oils to improve performance and to enhance look and feel, which are of course critical to customers. The result is this handbag!

Image of black, biologically derived material

And on the slide behind me, you can see in more detail the fibres that make up the handbag. These miniscule nanocellulose fibres are actually really, really strong – 8 times stronger than stainless steel relative to weight!

Modern Synthesis is just 1 example of a pioneering UK company making waves in this area. Another example is Solena Materials who are using AI to help design completely new materials from scratch, including fibres that are effective at absorbing energy. This makes them relevant for the military and the police, who need blast-, ballistic- and stab-proof clothing. As the ex-Chief Scientific Adviser for the Ministry of Defence, it’s great to see engineering biology applications offering benefits for defence.

Developing new materials like these can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional material production. This includes minimising the environmental impacts of raising livestock for leather or the energy-intensive processes involved in creating synthetic textiles such as polyesters and nylons. Better still, these materials can be designed for biodegradability, getting away from the big problem of plastic pollution.

Allow me to quote from our report for a second: “Imagine a world where every piece of your clothing has minimal cost to the environment, with zero waste going to landfills. Even if a piece of clothing is accidentally discarded into the environment, it safely biodegrades to leave no trace of its existence. This is the future of fashion, and engineering biology is helping to make it happen.”

Let me move now to another pervasive problem: inefficiencies in food production. Most of you will be aware that fertilisers are used by farmers across the world to supply nitrogen to their crops. Without fertilisers, yields suffer.

But there are 2 problems. First, the process for making nitrogen fertilisers is very energy-intensive. It’s responsible for between 1 and 2% of the entire world’s energy use – and generates matching CO2 emissions. Second, using fertilisers has considerable environmental impacts, releasing further greenhouse gas emissions and damaging waterways thanks to fertiliser runoff from fields.

This slide shows excessive algae growth – a common impact of fertiliser runoff – in the River Wantsum in Kent.

Currently, farmers across the world use more than 200 million tonnes of chemical fertilisers every year.

Diagram showing molecules of nitrogen and hydrogen converted into molecules of ammonia, with a chemical equilibrium sign betweem ammonia and molecules of nitrogen that combine with molecules of hydrogen

Now, this ability to produce nitrogen at scale – via the Haber-Bosch process – was without question the most important chemical breakthrough of the 20th century. The reaction that underpins this industrial process is shown behind me – converting nitrogen and hydrogen into ammonia, which is commonly used in fertilisers. It was discovered by Fritz Haber. Over half the global population depends for survival on foods fertilised using industrial production of nitrogen. But for the reasons I’ve outlined, we do need to do better.

So how can engineering biology help?

What if we could engineer cereals crops to absorb their own nitrogen from the environment, without relying on fertilisers? We call that “fixing” nitrogen.

There are actually examples of this happening in nature. There are bacteria in the soil called rhizobia which are particularly good at fixing nitrogen; in fact, they convert nitrogen gas from the atmosphere into ammonia – which is precisely the form of nitrogen that plants need. Legumes such as peas, clover and lupins attract these rhizobia bacteria to live in their roots – in small structures called nodules. In return for a steady supply of ammonia, the plant houses and feeds the bacteria, forming an ideal symbiotic relationship.

Behind me is an illustration of a plant with root nodules… but in classic Blue Peter style, here are a couple I grew earlier!

This clover plant from my lawn has nodules on its roots – but, because they are a bit tiny, I have also brought a photo of the same plant.

For these sort of plants, we can already coat their seeds with rhizobia and achieve increases in yields. And we can even go a step further by adding the bacteria directly to fields in a process called soil inoculation.

But the trouble with cereal crops like wheat, barley and maize is that they don’t have those root nodules and nor do they produce the special signalling chemicals that legumes use to attract bacteria.

Image showing a clover plant with roots that have small circular nodules on them in the bottom left-hand corner and a sweet-corn plant with roots without nodules in the top right-hand corner

Here is another plant that I’ve brought in from my garden. This 1 is sweet-corn, a variety of maize and a major cereal crop worldwide. You can see its roots here on the top part of the slide… no nodules! These kinds of crops do not set up this kind of symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

So what researchers, like Phil Poole at the University of Oxford, are doing is trying to engineer a new generation of fertiliser-free crops, drawing on plant genetics, biochemistry and soil ecology.

One approach, given what I’ve just described, is to engineer cereals to form nodules on their roots that can host nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

The UK is leading the way on this – Oxford and Cambridge universities have major programmes backed by investment from our research councils and from the Gates Foundation. In fact, the teams involved work together as part of a larger collaboration, and have recently made some significant advances, engineering barley to form nodule-like structures and engineering barley roots to release the chemical signal rhizopine that prompts rhizobia to start fixing nitrogen.

The design-build-test-learn cycle I described earlier is a part of this research. All of the progress made so far has built on round after round of modifying, testing and redesigning organisms.

There are still many hurdles to overcome, both from a technical perspective and societally; genetic modification of crops is a very sensitive issue. But the value of the prize here is large, and I think scientists should not be shy about describing it.

Imagine a world where humanity’s main source of carbohydrates – cereal crops like wheat and barley – are able to generate their own nitrogen fertiliser.

We could tackle global food shortages on a much more sustainable basis and at the same solve 1 of the most urgent climate challenges, consigning industrially-produced nitrogen to the past.

Now, let’s just think about crops in a further context, because harvesting doesn’t have to be the end of their engineering biology journey!

At the start of this talk, I name-dropped a couple of bacterial strains in relation to metal recycling. Well the biologist in me can’t help but tell you another 1 – this time being a type of bacteria called Halomonas.

Researchers like Nigel Scrutton up at the University of Manchester, are engineering these bacteria to act as efficient factories for converting food waste into fuel via fermentation. When I say factories, I’m not talking about the massive industrial sites we would normally associate with fuel production.

This photo is of Fawley oil refinery in Hampshire.

Diagram showing drawings representing bacteria, food waste feedstock, a cylinder that produces fuel and container. The diagram shows that the result of feeding bacteria and food waste feedstock is fermentation that then produces fuel, which can be housed in a portable and scalable container

By contrast, these fuel-producing bacteria can be housed in different-sized containers like the ones on this slide – some of them not too dissimilar to shipping containers.

The beauty of this technology, therefore, is that it is inherently portable and scaleable to meet demand – with transformative implications for remote areas of the world where energy infrastructure can be scarce. And crucially, these are cleaner, fossil-free fuels that can be used to power homes, businesses, even aircraft.

Let’s focus on that last application for a second. At the moment, the aviation industry relies almost completely on kerosene-based fuels, which account for a staggering 3% of global CO2 emissions.

Burning fossil fuels is generally accepted as the main cause of global warming, so it is essential that we find ways to transition to sustainable sources of energy.

Engineering biology solutions like Nigel’s can therefore play a significant role in creating a future without fossil fuels. One of the benefits of using bacteria to turn waste into useful fuels is that this can create another circular economy in which we no longer need to extract and burn more and more harmful fossil fuels; instead we recycle the carbon we already have.

Personally, I think the environmental benefits are reason enough to get excited by this technology. But 1 of the great benefits of bacteria-fuel factories is how portable they are! In other words, they remove the need for large-scale bioreactor infrastructure.

Imagine a world where clean fuels could be produced locally and on demand – including in all those remote and sparsely populated regions which currently struggle to access the fuels they require.

Now, I argued just a moment ago that I want to convince people that engineering biology is about so much more than vaccines and medicines – and I hope that I’ve surprised at least some of you with the breadth of the examples I’ve described so far.

But I do have 1 example from medicine that is just too fascinating to leave out, and that’s research into laboratory-grown blood.

Why would we need such a product?

Currently, the world relies almost entirely on human blood donations to treat disease and for emergency medicine. In many countries, including the UK, donation rates fluctuate, and shortages can happen. On top of that, donated blood has a limited shelf life. It is challenging to store and challenging to distribute. When you consider the fact that some countries don’t have the infrastructure to deliver blood products safely, or think about conflict or humanitarian emergencies, the problems associated with donated blood become even clearer.

There are a few more issues too. It can be very difficult to source some rare blood types. And although blood services of course use screening to avoid known pathogens, there is always a risk of new ones arising, and being passed on to patients who receive blood transfusions.

For all these reasons, finding new ways to produce blood would be another game changer, and, once more engineering biology can help us.

Researchers, like Ash Toye at the University of Bristol, are exploring the possibility of banking unlimited supplies of red blood cells, either by transforming stem cells or genetically reprogramming donated precursor blood cells.

What you can see on the screen is a beautiful illustration by artist Claudia Stocker, which provides a visualisation of CRISPR – the “genetic scissors” technology I mentioned earlier – being used here to edit the genetic material of the precursor cells that will go on to become red blood cells.

The part of the image to focus on is the centre of the slide and specifically the spiral spools of DNA emanating from the big blue circle in the middle – the cell that will eventually give rise to the red blood cells around the outside of the slide. The little blue doughnuts represent the CRISPR technology in action, actively and precisely editing the DNA as we have instructed it to do.

This editing can enable us to produce precursor cells that can grow and divide indefinitely in a controlled environment, giving us unlimited blood supplies.

The Bristol team pioneering this research has been working closely with NHS Blood and Transplant and other partners in a ground-breaking clinical trial called RESTORE – RESTORE being the acronym for REcovery and survival of STem cell Originated REd cells.

It’s the first time in the world that red blood cells grown in a laboratory have been given to another person as part of a trial into blood transfusion – you might have seen media coverage of this programme, which has attracted interest from all over the world. The trial should produce further results by the end of this year or early next.

In the future, we could go a step further and use CRISPR to delete the genes responsible for blood groups, and – in doing so – create “universal” blood that would be invaluable in providing blood transfusions for individuals with rarer blood types.

Image of a table containing the combinations of blood types of a donor and a recipient that match each other and ones that do not. The matches are highlighted in purple and the mismatches in red

This slide is a brief reminder of the complexities around ensuring blood compatibility between donors and recipients. Only the combinations in purple are suitable.

The prospects here are again tantalising. Imagine a world where no patient dies due to a lack of compatible blood following an accident or during surgery. Where safe blood is available on demand, can be stored for longer and is free of disease transmission risks.

So there are all these amazing opportunities, which you can tell I love talking about!

We’ve covered a fair bit of ground about engineering biology: not just historically but geographically, in universities and companies, and across a range of applications.

I’m so proud that our country can lay claim to so much ingenuity. Microbial metal recycling from Edinburgh. Biosynthetic fuels from Manchester. Lab-grown blood from Bristol. Nitrogen-fixing cereals from Oxford. And nanocellulose-based materials from right here in London.

I want to end, though on a broader point concerning emerging technologies such as engineering biology and others besides.

Earlier, you heard me talk about risks and challenges, including the need for responsible innovation.

Another challenge – though – is about how we, as a society, talk about science and technology in general.

Clearly, 1 of my aims this evening has been to raise awareness of engineering biology.

But it strikes me that we’re living through a period where public engagement around science is getting harder.

That’s not just because of the unprecedented volumes of misinformation circulating around us.

We now live in a less paternalistic society – which is surely a good thing – it is no longer enough for scientists to tell people what’s good for them and expect them to toe the line. Instead, we know we need to have a proper, well-informed debate about these issues.

Clearly, it would be possible for the promise of engineering biology to be compromised by public opposition. We need to listen to public concerns – really listen! – and understand that if we don’t respond to those concerns people will be perfectly within their rights to not support, or actively block, the engineering biology advances that we’re trying to create.

There is a lot of work to do here. I don’t think we can ever be finished listening to the public.

Essentially, the technologies we’re developing in engineering biology need to offer solutions to problems that people actually care about.

Health, nutrition, climate, the environment, sustainability, global equity. I know that these are problems that billions of people care about.

I hope I’ve persuaded you that when it comes to these problems, engineering biology can provide solutions.

Image of the front cover of the 'Engineering Biology Aspirations' report on the left-hand side and a QR code to the webpage with the report on the right-hand side

Thank you for listening – do read our report; here it is – and thank you to the Royal Institution for asking me to speak in this 200th anniversary year for discourses.

Read the Engineering Biology Aspirations report (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/engineering-biology-aspirations-report).