Joy Zhang

It was a real pleasure to give a seminar at University College London’s Structural & Molecular Biology department in March on ‘Futuring Engineering Biology: Making Innovation Work in Society’.

The highlight, though, was the chance for one-to-one conversations with seven group leaders within the department. These exchanges were incredibly enriching: we spoke about how lab infrastructures are evolving, how engineering biology is being organised in practice, and how different trajectories of the field are taking shape across research environments. It is always in these smaller, more candid conversations that one gets a real sense of how a field is lived day to day.

It was also lovely to reconnect with ELEMENTAL colleagues. My thanks to Prof. Joanna Santini for the invitation and for arranging such thoughtful meetings.