{"id":14,"date":"2026-01-30T15:33:59","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T15:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/?page_id=14"},"modified":"2026-01-31T15:02:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T15:02:36","slug":"research","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/research\/","title":{"rendered":"Research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Synthetic biology enables us to control certain genetic programmes and introduce novel phenotypes in model bacteria such as\u00a0<em>E. coli,\u00a0<\/em>though as a field we cannot comprehensively engineer the bacteria that significantly affect human health. Our group develops genome engineering tools for the\u00a0<em>de novo\u00a0<\/em>synthesis of non-model gut bacteria, with the ultimate aim of reprogramming the microbiome. These aims build on the key contributions we have made to the total synthesis of\u00a0<em>E. coli<\/em>\u00a0genomes as well as applications for the resultant recoded bacteria. In particular, the potential of sense codon reassignment to generate orthogonal genetic communication systems (e.g. viruses cannot infect our cells) provides a powerful approach to address unmet needs for the stability and biosecurity of current gut bacterial models. To this end, as a synthetic genomics group within PNAC we redesign, synthesise, and deploy bacterial species abundant in the microbiome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"618\" src=\"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/Fig-for-Web_share-v2-1024x618.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-62\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/Fig-for-Web_share-v2-1024x618.png 1024w, https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/Fig-for-Web_share-v2-300x181.png 300w, https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/Fig-for-Web_share-v2-768x464.png 768w, https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/Fig-for-Web_share-v2-1536x927.png 1536w, https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/Fig-for-Web_share-v2.png 1869w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The total synthesis of native bacteria with orthogonal genetic codes, notably, would improve their genetic stability and enable their programmable deployment as biotherapeutics. As a long-term goal,\u00a0<em>de novo\u00a0<\/em>genome design and synthesis technologies will lead to entire synthetic cellular communities that can be used to study and interrogate the microbiome in a biosecure manner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synthetic biology enables us to control certain genetic programmes and introduce novel phenotypes in model bacteria such as\u00a0E. coli,\u00a0though as a field we cannot comprehensively engineer the bacteria that significantly affect human health. Our group develops genome engineering tools for the\u00a0de novo\u00a0synthesis of non-model gut bacteria, with the ultimate aim of reprogramming the microbiome. These [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63,"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14\/revisions\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk\/groups\/robertson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}