Principal investigator

Diego López Barreiro

  • 2022-present Lecturer, Department of Chemical Engineering, UCL - UK
  • 2020-2022 Marie Curie Fellow, DSM - The Netherlands
  • 2016-2020 Postdoctoral associate, MIT - USA
  • 2015 PhD Applied Biological Sciences: Chemistry and Bioprocess Technology, Ghent University - Belgium
  • 2011 MSc Chemical Engineering, University of Santiago de Compostela - Spain

Research fellows


Hamish Mitchell

Crystallisation of GLP-1 analogue peptides


Post-doctoral research associates


Soham Sarkar

Computational simulations of protein-based materials


Doctoral researchers


Ebony Shire

Functionally graded materials



Ruiyan Gao

Sustainable biosensing platforms



Alexander Birrell

Biomineralised engineered living materials



Abby Thompson

Protein-based coatings for vascular grafts



Eloise Lipscombe

Protein-based textile fibres (primary supervisor: Prof. Yanlan Mao)



Lillian Wang

Antimicrobial materials



Ainhoa Hermida Amado

Seaweed biorefinery (primary supervisor: Dr. Emily Kostas)



Zikir Akbar Kemala

Biobased asphalt binders (primary supervisor: Prof. Ozgur Yazaydin)


Former members

  • Lisa-Marie Kreidler - MSc Nature-Inspired Solutions (2026)
  • Xinnuo He - MSc Nature-Inspired Solutions (2026)
  • Andrea Andersson Rodriguez - MRes Synthetic Biology (2025)
  • Shams Elnawawi - MSc Nature-Inspired Solutions (2025)
  • Yuan Wan - MSc Nature-Inspired Solutions (2025)
  • Alex Chen - MSc Nature-Inspired Solutions (2024)
  • Eric Hauke - MSc Nature-Inspired Solutions (2024)