South West wins share of £13.5m for engineering biology R&D projects

By Nicky Godding

26 April 2024

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Scarlet Therapeutics

New projects will use engineering biology to tackle challenges in the fields of health, environment, food production and sustainability.

The £13.5 million funding is provided by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Technology Missions Fund and delivered by Innovate UK.

The 48 projects cover a wide range of sectors and disciplines and involve private companies, academic institutions and partner bodies.

One project is being led by Bristol-based Scarlet Therapeutics.

Its UNIVERCell project is an engineered red blood cell line which could generate vastly improved methodologies for the production of red blood cells that can be engineered to treat many, currently poorly treated, human diseases.

Based in Bristol, the science underpinning the company has previously been funded by: UKRI through the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Innovate UK, Wellcome Trust, the National Institute for Health and Care Research and NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT).

Dr Kedar Pandya, UKRI Technology Missions Fund Senior Responsible Owner and Executive Director of Cross-Council Programmes at UKRI’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [editor - that has to be the longest job title ever] said: "Engineering Biology is one of the critical technologies for the UK’s strength and opportunity identified in the Innovation Strategy. These projects, funded through the Technologies Missions Fund, will enable companies to push boundaries in many fields and develop products and services that will improve our way of life and address some of the serious challenges we face as a society."

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.