Alex J H Fedorec
Group leader
he/him
I am a new group leader (assistant professor/lecturer) in the Division of Biosciences
at University College London, UK. My research involves applying computational and
mathematical techniques to understand and engineer new biological systems. I
am particularly interested in biotherapeutic and bioindustrial applications of
biological engineering with a focus on creating stable and
predictable synthetic microbial communities in complex environments, such as
the gastrointestinal tract.
I was previously a Research Fellow in the
Computational Systems and Synthetic Biology
group in the Department of
Cell & Developmental Biology at University College London, UK.
I have a background in computer science and industrial experience as a
software engineer at Research in Motion (now BlackBerry).
Members
Alice Cook
PhD student 2023-
I am a PhD student on the London Interdisciplinary Biosciences Consortium DTP
(LIDo). My research will look at motility, patterning, and information
processing in cellular communities, as part of the Fedorec group at UCL and
the Bentley group at the Francis Crick Institute. Previously, I completed a
BASc in Arts and Sciences at UCL. I also completed a PhD rotation project in
the Pearce and Barnes groups at UCL looking at experimental and computational
design of self-organised patterning via chemical signalling in microbial
communities, and a further rotation project with the Logan group (King's
College London) and Bentley group on fibroblast, ECM, and muscle fibre
disorganisation in congenital limb abnormalities using wet-lab and agent-based
modelling approaches.
Yue (Casey) Chen
PhD student 2023-
I am a PhD student on the EPSCR CDT BioDesign Engineering program. I am
interested in using both wet-lab and dry-lab approaches to design and control
different aspects of microbial communities. Before joining the group, I worked
as a research assistant at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (SIAT), focusing on
the characterisation of a biofilm-derived conductive protein. I completed an
MRes in Systems and Synthetic Biology from Imperial College London and obtained
a BSc in Molecular Genetics from the University of Edinburgh.
Louie Destouches
PhD student 2023-
he/him
I am a PhD student on the UCL EPSRC DTP program exploring the robustness of
synthetic microbial communities to environmental factors. I grew up in France
and moved to the UK to complete my Bachelor's in Biological Sciences at the
University of Exeter with an additional study abroad year at the Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology. I returned to Paris, where I worked as a
TEM technician and completed a Masters focused on Systems and Synthetic
Biology at the Learning Planet Institute/Université Paris Cité. During this
course, I completed several placements - at INRAE I use machine learning and
image segmentation to quantify the morphological effects of certain
antibiotics, at Institut Curie I designed an E. coli consortia to perform
ratio-metric control, and at Institut Pasteur I used anaerobic microscopy to
investigate the phenotype of a protein knock-out. I was also team leader for
the 2022 Paris-Bettencourt team for the international synthetic biology iGEM
competition, where we created interfaces between bacterial genetics and
electronics. I also have an interest in sustainable agriculture systems - I
have run workshops on aquaponics and installed systems in community gardens
and Makerspaces. I am a member of the Center of Art and Ecology at the
University of Goldmiths, where I teach microbiology practicals in their DIY
lab space. For my PhD project, I work with bacteria and yeast communities,
understanding how these different communities behave in response to changes in
their environment and leveraging those mechanisms to control community dynamics.
Alumni
- Paul Goodman MRes Synthetic Biology 2023-24
- Griffin Kiedaisch MSc Natural Sciences 2023-24
- Nunnapat (Mod) Jantorn BSc Biomedical Science 2023-24
- Renlong Xie BSc Biomedical Science 2023-24
- Samir Chitnavis LIDo rotation student 2023