Lee Coffey

Dr Lee Coffey is a Lecturer and Principal Investigator at the Department of Science, South East Technological University (SETU). He leads the Molecular Biotechnology and Biopharmaceutical Research Group at the Pharmaceutical and Molecular Biotechnology Research Centre (PMBRC). His research focuses on molecular biology applications in biopharmaceuticals, gene therapy, industrial enzymes, and DNA data storage. Coffey has secured over €2M in research funding as principal investigator and has supervised fourteen PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers. He founded BIOENZ Technologies Ltd., a spin-out company licensing ~4000 biological technologies.

• Education: PhD in Molecular Biology (2007), BSc in Applied Biology with Quality Management (2002)

Research interests include genome editing, synthetic biology, directed evolution, and bio-cybersecurity. He has licensed 1400+ technologies to global companies and holds 5 pending patents. Awards include the 2022 SETU Research Excellence Award and multiple National Forum Teaching Hero Awards (2020–2021).

Key grants and patents span biopharmaceuticals, nanotechnology, and molecular computing. His work bridges academia and industry, emphasizing commercialization of research outputs.