University Associate Professor in Synthetic Biology
Academic Division: Information Engineering
Research group: Control
Telephone: +44 1223 3 32753
Email: sb2330@eng.cam.ac.uk
Research interests
- Engineering and characterising genetic control circuits in bacteria
- Engineering and characterising therapeutic phage viruses
- Single-cell analysis of phage infection kinetics in bacteria
- Single cell analysis of antibiotic persistence and collective tolerance
- Developing quantitative methods for microbiology: Microscopy, Microfluidics, and Machine-learning
Strategic themes
Bioengineering
Systems Microbiology: Analysis of antibiotic tolerance, persistence, and phage infection in bacteria
Synthetic Microbiology: Engineering therapeutic genetic control circuits and bacteriophages to combat antibiotic tolerance
Method Development: Developing Microfluidic and Microscopic methodologies for analysis of genetic circuits and phage infection in bacteria
Smart Microscopy: Developing targeted microscopy solutions (acquisition and analysis) for biological systems and problems
Biography
Somenath Bakshi is an Associate Professor interested in quantitative microbiology. He is a single molecule biophysicist by training. He did his PhD in University of Wisconsin Madison under Professor James Weisshaar – developing super-resolution imaging technologies to study central cellular processes in microbes. After finishing his PhD, he moved to Harvard University for his postdoc with Professor Johan Paulsson. During his postdoc Somenath developed high-throughput timelapse imaging technologies of single microbes in controlled complex growth-conditions. Though most of his work has focused on developing methods and approaches to synthetic biology, he remains interested in quantifying the dynamics and control of natural circuits.
Department role and responsibilities
Lecturer - 3G1: Molecular Bioengineering
Lab leader - ExA: Bioengineering Extension Activity
Project leader - SG2: Bioreactor Control
Committees: Degree Committee, Bioengineering Steering Committee, Biosafety committee
Supervisor for MEng, MPhil, and PhD students, and PDRAs