Airway organoids

Airway epithelial cell organoid model with enabled inversion for SARS-CoV-2 infection susceptibility.

Professor Ian Adcock

(ian.adcock@imperial.ac.uk)

Bacteriophage engineering

Targeted gene transfer technologies that can pass through the blood brain barrier.

Professor Amin Hajitou

(a.hajitou@imperial.ac.uk)

Biodegradable biosensors

Use of beads coated with the microbially produced biopolymer Poly-Hydroxy-Alkanoates (AL-PHA) for recognising the activity of a variety of proteases giving insight into a broad range of diseases. PHAs are environmentally friendly, low-cost, biodegradable bioreporters with a number of different industrial and biomedical applications, including enzyme production, diagnostics, vaccines and tissue engineering.

Professor Michael Templeton

(m.templeton@imperial.ac.uk)

Biomaterials and scaffold-based platforms

Stem cell scaffolds and other biomaterials for the regeneration of ectodermal organs/tissues (i.e., teeth, hair follicles, salivary and lacrimal glands).

Dr Adam Celiz

(a.celiz@imperial.ac.uk)

Evo-Engine: Directed evolution platform

Directed evolution uses tiny bacteria-infecting viruses, called phage, that have the capacity under a series of selective pressures to mutate and evolve new proteins, enzymes, drugs, or even become able to perform complex logical functions (e.g., as with gene circuit engineering: the screening of gene networks for identification of fittest variants). The EVO-ENGINE that we have here is a robot prototype that can grow phage and bacteria under a series of selective pressures. Over time, with random mutations and increasing selection pressures the system can evolve better logic gates. We are currently harnessing the power of this method using bacteriophage lambda cI to generate orthogonal dual activator-repressor transcription factors that can work on complex multi-input promoters in bacteria.  

Professor Mark Isalan

(m.isalan@imperial.ac.uk)

GMP facility - John Goldman Centre, Hammersmith Campus

Transplantation and cellular therapy, ex vivo cell expansion.

Professor Jane Apperley

(j.apperley@imperial.ac.uk)

Nucleic acid sensing

Dr Sylvain Ladame

(s.ladame@imperial.ac.uk)

Positron Emission Tomography

Markers for inflammation detection.

Dr David Owen

(d.owen@imperial.ac.uk)

Pre-GMP facility for immunotherapeutic studies and trials, equipped with:

• MSD Quickplex SQ 120 (patient serum cytokine profiling)
• CliniMACS Prodigy (Miltenyi; clinical grade (GMP) antigen specific T and HIV-1 specific T cells with IFN-g cytokine capture system)
• MACSQuant Analyser 16 Flow Cytometer (Miltenyi;  fluorescently labelled cells and cytokine assays - QC required)
• Sepax 2 S-100 (peripheral blood under MHRA regulatory requirements)
• BD AriaIII Cell Sorter

Professor Xiao-Ning Xu

(x.xu@imperial.ac.uk)

• Single Molecule Fluorescence Imaging in vitro and in cell

• Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET)

• Optical Tweezers

Quantitative single-molecule microscopy approaches for investigation of structural dynamics of individual molecules (DNA, RNA) and the study of off-target CRISPR/Cas9 binding. The optical tweezers can apply microscale force for the study of spatial interactions and the measure of activity between nucleic acids and/or proteins.

Professor David Rueda

(david.rueda@imperial.ac.uk)

Small scale advanced therapeutic clinical trial infrastructure

Facilities for small clinical trials within the Ocular Genetics Clinic in Western Eye Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

Professor Francesca Cordeiro

(francesca.cordeiro@nhs.net)

Ultrasound technologies for drug delivery

Dr James Choi

(j.choi@imperial.ac.uk)