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Benedict Claxton Stevens

Research Fellow, Faculty of Engineering

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2025-Present - Synthetic Biology Research Center / Biodiscovery Institute

CLAXTON STEVENS, BENEDICT H., RUMAH, BASHIR L., STEAD, CHRISTOPHER E. and ZHANG, YING, 2023. A Complete Genome of the Alphaproteobacterial Methanotroph Methylocystis parvus OBBP Microbiology Resource Announcements. 12(4),
RUMAH, BASHIR L., CLAXTON STEVENS, BENEDICT H., YEBOAH, JAKE E., STEAD, CHRISTOPHER E., HARDING, EMILY L., MINTON, NIGEL P. and ZHANG, YING, 2023. In Vivo Genome Editing in Type I and II Methanotrophs Using a CRISPR/Cas9 System ACS Synthetic Biology. 12(2), 544-554
RUMAH, BASHIR L., STEAD, CHRISTOPHER E., CLAXTON STEVENS, BENEDICT H., MINTON, NIGEL P., GROSSE-HONEBRINK, ALEXANDER and ZHANG, YING, 2021. Isolation and characterisation of Methylocystis spp. for poly-3-hydroxybutyrate production using waste methane feedstocks AMB EXPRESS. 11(1),
CLAXTON STEVENS, BENEDICT H.,, 2020. ‘A Sustainable Future’ Case Study - PHB Bioplastic Production from Waste Methane Microbiology Society. Available at: <https://microbiologysociety.org/why-microbiology-matters/our-history/75th-anniversary-a-sustainable-future/circular-economy/circular-economy-case-studies/phb-bioplastic-production-from-waste-methane.html>

2024-2025 - University of Nottingham - Environmental and Chemical Engineering

Part of the €1.5 million proto-spinout Materi-8 project taking plastics, textiles and lignocellulose to platform chemicals using two stages of fermentation.
Responsibilities in analytics (HPLC and LC-MS data analysis), feedstock pre-processing and fermentation of bacteria and algae from 1-140L scale from 90 days to 6 months

2023 - University of Nottingham - Synthetic Biology Research Center / Biodiscovery Institute

Process design, validation and completion of nanopore metagenomic sequencing of trout, mealworm and feed stuffs sourced from single cell protein feed experiments.
Development of associated Bioinformatics protocols.

PhD: "Methylocystis parvus: Genomics, Engineering and Sustainable PHB Production" - Prof. Ying Zhang

Gas fermentation of methanotrophs for coproduction of biomass and PHB based Bioplastics
Validation of anaerobic digestor gas as a methane source for gas fermentation
Scale up from 35ml Serum Bottle to 1L fermenters.
Separation analysis of product to conserve biomass for Single Cell Protein and Bioplastic.
CRISPR and CRISPRi development in methanotrophs
Development of a Nanopore 16S method for monitoring constituents of mixed culture fermentations.

Interests:

CLAXTON STEVENS, BENEDICT H., RUMAH, BASHIR L., STEAD, CHRISTOPHER E. and ZHANG, YING, 2023. A Complete Genome of the Alphaproteobacterial Methanotroph Methylocystis parvus OBBP Microbiology Resource Announcements. 12(4),
RUMAH, BASHIR L., CLAXTON STEVENS, BENEDICT H., YEBOAH, JAKE E., STEAD, CHRISTOPHER E., HARDING, EMILY L., MINTON, NIGEL P. and ZHANG, YING, 2023. In Vivo Genome Editing in Type I and II Methanotrophs Using a CRISPR/Cas9 System ACS Synthetic Biology. 12(2), 544-554
RUMAH, BASHIR L., STEAD, CHRISTOPHER E., CLAXTON STEVENS, BENEDICT H., MINTON, NIGEL P., GROSSE-HONEBRINK, ALEXANDER and ZHANG, YING, 2021. Isolation and characterisation of Methylocystis spp. for poly-3-hydroxybutyrate production using waste methane feedstocks AMB EXPRESS. 11(1),
CLAXTON STEVENS, BENEDICT H.,, 2020. ‘A Sustainable Future’ Case Study - PHB Bioplastic Production from Waste Methane Microbiology Society. Available at: <https://microbiologysociety.org/why-microbiology-matters/our-history/75th-anniversary-a-sustainable-future/circular-economy/circular-economy-case-studies/phb-bioplastic-production-from-waste-methane.html>