School of Life Sciences
 

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Nigel Minton

Director, BBSRC/EPSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre (SBRC), Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences

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Biography

Nigel Minton established the Clostridia Research Group (CRG) in 2004 at the University of Nottingham to focus exclusively on improving the scientific understanding of Clostridium, after spending 25 years at the Centre for Applied Microbiology and research at Porton Down. The CRG aims both to develop more effective countermeasures against pathogens and to exploit the medical and industrial properties of beneficial strains, specifically in cancer therapy and biofuel production. A former programme leader within the UK BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre (BSBEC), he is now the Director of a BBSRC/EPSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre (SBRC) focused on gas fermentation. He is also the director of the BBSRC Network in Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy (NIBB), "C1net: Chemicals from C1 Gas". He is the PI of a BBSRC sLoLa part-funded by LanzTech, a Co-I on two ERA-IB projects, holds BBSRC Partnership awards with Brazil, India and China and coordinates a HORIZON 2020 ETN. He has secured in excess of £45M in funding since he arrived at Nottingham and is a recent (2015) recipient of a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. He is on the Management Board of the University of Nottingham BBSRC Doctoral Training Programme (DTP), which annually recruits 50 PhD students and has supervised over 40 PhD students. He has served on many national committees, is regularly invited to speak at international conferences, has an h-index of 49 (>250 articles published with >8500 citations) and has filed 22 patents. He sits on the LanzaTech and Manchester SBRC Scientific Advisory Boards and is the scientific lead on C. difficile research within Nottingham's £23.5M NIHR BioMedical Research Centre (BRC).

Expertise Summary

Nigel is a world expert in clostridial gene technologies and leads one of the largest research groups (>100) at Nottingham, the CRG. Their remit is to:- (i) develop more effective countermeasures (diagnosis, prevention & treatment) against pathogens, specifically Clostridium difficile and Clostridium botulinum and (ii) to exploit the medical and industrial properties of beneficial strains, specifically in cancer therapy and in the production of chemical commodities from renewable resources. He has a proven track record of working with Industry, and the MTA portfolio dealing with the distribution of his patented tools is the largest within the University, with >250 MTAs drafted, and 24 licences and options granted.

Selected Publications

School of Life Sciences

University of Nottingham
Medical School
Queen's Medical Centre
Nottingham NG7 2UH

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