John Heap

Dr. John Heap is a Visiting Professor at Imperial College London's Department of Life Sciences and an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Synthetic Biology at Imperial's Centre for Synthetic Biology (IC-CSynB). He leads the Heap Lab, now primarily based at the University of Nottingham's School of Life Sciences since 2019. His research focuses on engineering synthetic biological systems for applications in chemical manufacturing and healthcare, particularly using Clostridium and cyanobacteria. He is the Principal Investigator of the GlycoCell UKRI Engineering Biology Mission Hub, a flagship initiative applying synthetic biology to glycoengineering for vaccines and therapeutics. His affiliations include the Nottingham Engineering Biology Labs (NEBL), the Leverhulme Centre for Cellular Bionics, and the Institute of Chemical Biology.

Research interests span foundational technologies in synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, enzyme evolution, and industrial biotechnology. The Heap Lab develops tools like the ClosTron online design system for bacterial genome editing and contributes to open-science initiatives via Addgene. Current projects emphasize glycoengineering, cyanobacterial metabolic pathways, and orthogonal genetic control systems. Funding includes the UKRI Engineering Biology Mission Hub, with active recruitment for postdocs, PhD students, and lab roles.

Dr. Heap’s work has been featured in media, including a World Economic Forum presentation on synthetic biology’s potential. Collaborations span academia and industry, with a focus on translating engineered biological systems to address societal challenges in health and sustainability.