Dr Ciaran Kelly

Assistant Professor

School: Geography and Natural Sciences

I was recruited to the Department as a Vice-Chancellor's Fellow in Molecular Biosciences in 2019.

To find out more about recent grant successes, current lab members, publications and exciting research projects, check out: kellysynbio.com.

Background:

As an undergraduate, I studied genetics at the University of Glasgow, and my Honours Project investigated the central genetic circuits controlling the plant circadian clock; research I continued after graduation in the evenings after work, eventually published in Science [14]. I was lucky to lead research expeditions to the Amazon basin in Ecuador in 2004 and 2005, and it was these trips that instilled my drive to combine genetics/DNA with environmental applications.

I obtained my PhD in Molecular Microbiology at the University of Dundee in 2013. My PhD thesis explored the use of synthetic biology for biohydrogen production in Escherichia coli. This involved the first successful integration of a complex bifurcating hydrogen--producing enzyme into the anaerobic metabolism of E. coli, the first evidence that a native E. coli hydrogen enzyme operated bidirectionally in vivo, and the first successful reengineering of the native hydrogen--producing enzyme of E. coli to accept electrons from other sources.

Following my PhD I focussed on learning and developing approaches and tools enabling predictable engineering of biological pathways and circuits. My postdoctoral experience included positions at the University of Oxford, Imperial College London and Newcastle University. This research focussed on the development of novel tools enabling precise, orthogonal control of gene expression in model and non-model organisms, synthetic metabolic engineering of photosynthetic bacteria for novel light-driven carbon fixation and the first use of engineered Hfq-associated small RNAs in synthetic negative-feedback circuits.

Email Ciaran

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Overall Research Interests:

Our group tries to engineer biology for real-world impact: from scalable synthetic metabolism to microbes for sustainable agriculture. We evolve and engineer plant growth promoting bacteria for more robust growth of crops in challenging climates, we engineer bacteria to produce important industrial pre-cursor chemicals through sustainable routes and we try to make the engineering of bacteria easier and more predictable through the development of tools for precise genetic regulation, the one-pot assembly of chimeric membrane proteins and through tools to accelerate evolution of strains.

Collaborations:

I am very keen to collaborate with companies on ways to engineer organisms for the reliable scaling-up of bioproduction, as well as companies interested in developing novel antimicrobial approaches using Synthetic Biology. Please get in touch at ciaran.l.kelly@northumbria.ac.uk

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Hanessian-Hullar reaction in the synthesis of highly substituted trans-3,4-dihydroxypyrrolidines: Rhamnulose iminosugar mimics inhibit alpha-glucosidase, Liu, Z., Yoshihara, A., Jenkinson, S., Wormald, M., Kelly, C., Heap, J., Marqvorsen, M., Estévez, R., Fleet, G., Nakagawa, S., Izumori, K., Nash, R., Kato, A. 3 Jan 2020, In: Tetrahedron
In situ characterisation and manipulation of biological systems with Chi.Bio, Steel, H., Habgood, R., Kelly, C., Papachristodoulou, A. 30 Jul 2020, In: PLoS Biology
Degrading an enzyme to increase its product: A novel approach to decoupling biosynthesis and growth, Kelly, C. Jan 2019, In: Synthetic Biology
Transcriptional Terminators Allow Leak-Free Chromosomal Integration of Genetic Constructs in Cyanobacteria, Kelly, C., Taylor, G., Heap, J., Dekker, L., Satsuke, A. 16 Aug 2019, In: Microorganisms
A Rhamnose-Inducible System for Precise and Temporal Control of Gene Expression in Cyanobacteria, Kelly, C., Taylor, G., Hitchcock, A., Torres-Méndez, A., Heap, J. 20 Apr 2018, In: ACS Synthetic Biology
Review of NAD(P)H-dependent oxidoreductases: Properties, engineering and application, Sellés Vidal, L., Kelly, C., Mordaka, P., Heap, J. Feb 2018, In: Biochimica et Biophysica Acta - Proteins and Proteomics
Synthetic negative feedback circuits using engineered small RNAs, Kelly, C., Harris, A., Steel, H., Hancock, E., Heap, J., Papachristodoulou, A. 12 Oct 2018, In: Nucleic Acids Research
The Autorepressor: a Case Study of the Importance of Model Selection, Harris, A., Kelly, C., Steel, H., Papachristodoulou, A. 23 Jan 2018, 56th IEEE Annual Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2017
Expanding the substrates for a bacterial hydrogenlyase reaction, Lamont, C., Kelly, C., Pinske, C., Buchanan, G., Palmer, T., Sargent, F. 1 May 2017, In: Microbiology
Frequency domain analysis of small non-coding RNAs shows summing junction-like behaviour, Steel, H., Harris, A., Hancock, E., Kelly, C., Papachristodoulou, A. 15 Dec 2017, 2017 IEEE 56th Annual Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2017, Piscataway, NJ, IEEE

PGR Supervision

Max Richardson Developing High Affinity Metal Chelating Peptides through Synthetic Biology and Computational Design. Start Date: 01/10/2025 End Date: 17/10/2025
Alisha Stones The Production and Polymerisation of Bio-Based C2-C4 Diols for Industrial Applications. Start Date: 01/10/2025 End Date: 17/10/2025
Max Richardson Developing High Affinity Metal Chelating Peptides through Synthetic Biology and ComputationalDesign. Start Date: 01/10/2025
Emma Riley Engineering Azospirillum brasilense sp7 for plant growth promoting applications in future climates Start Date: 01/10/2020 End Date: 23/05/2025
Alisha Stones The Production and Polymerisation of Bio-Based C2-C4 Diols for Industrial Applications. Start Date: 01/10/2025
Drew Thomson Engineered synthetic bacterial membrane microdomain proteins for efficient biofuel production Start Date: 01/10/2022 End Date: 17/10/2025
Drew Thomson Engineering synthetic membrane proteins for bioproduction. Start Date: 01/10/2022