Winner: 2021 Felix Franks Biotechnology Medal
Dr Yuval Elani
Imperial College London
For his development of a series of technologies that allow synthetic cells to be constructed from scratch using biomolecular building blocks.
The recipient of the 2021 欧美AV Felix Franks Biotechnology Medal - for the 3rd year of the award - was Dr Yuval Elani of the Chemical Engineering Department, Imperial College London. Yuval was presented with his award after his lecture at the 欧美AV MIBIO2022 meeting held at Downing College, Cambridge,nolog on 19th October 2022.
Yuval, a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, has been a pioneer in the development and advancement of 鈥渂ottom-up鈥� synthetic biology, a step-change from traditional efforts, which have focused on the top-down modification of living cells. Yuval鈥檚 approach has been to develop a series of technologies that allow synthetic cells to be constructed from scratch using biomolecular building blocks, an approach that has led to powerful partnerships with Industry: GSK Vaccines, AstraZeneca, and Syngenta, partnerships which are exploiting artificial cells in smart therapeutic devices, for vaccine delivery, and in agritech compound development pipelines.
His most noticeable accomplishments include the development of cutting edge microfluidic, optofluidic, and membrane engineering technologies for the manufacture of vesicle based synthetic cells with user defined size, compartmentalisation and molecular content (published in Nature Communications in 2018).
Yuval has shown that by incorporating biomolecular machines into these constructs, they can be engineered to sense and respond to their environments (PNAS 2019), swim up concentration gradients (Nature Communications in 2021), synthesise proteins (Physical Chemistry, Chemical Physics 2016), and act as biochemical microreactors (Nature Communications 2014 & 2018).
He has recently begun a new research trajectory towards biointerface science, investigating how artificial cells can be combined with living materials. He has constructed artificial cells with encapsulated cells that can power internal reactions through photosynthesis, and by establishing communication routes between living and synthetic cells (published in Scientific Reports in 2018 and Angewandte Chemie 2020). This has formed the cornerstone of his UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.
At the heart of Yuval鈥檚 successes has been his adoption of a uniquely multidisciplinary networked science approach, successfully dovetailing his expertise in microfluidics, synthetic biology, chemical biology, soft matter and membrane biophysics.