UCL East Manufacturing Futures Lab Director Appointed

7 November 2023

On 1 September, Prof. Gary Lye stepped down as Head of UCL Biochemical Engineering and was appointed the Director of the new UCL East Manufacturing Futures Lab (MFL), based at the newly-opened UCL East Campus.

The MFL is one of the largest academic entities at UCL East, involving 26 new staff appointments across the UCL departments of Biochemical, Chemical and Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Chemistry. The MFL comprises approximately 2000 square meters of new laboratory and workshop space, primarily on the top two floors of the Marshgate building. Research within MFL will take a distinctly multidisciplinary approach to novel manufacturing research addressing issues of sustainability across the medicines, chemical and materials sectors.

The MFL staff will lead the delivery of 6 new MSc programmes covering topics from nanoscale and digital manufacturing technologies to the manufacture of cell and gene therapy products. The MSc Manufacture and Commercialisation of Stem Cell and Gene Therapies will now be based at the MFL, along with several UCL Biochemical Engineering academics.

The MFL also features a space for a dedicated microbrewery facility led by UCL Biochemical Engineering academic Dr Mike Sulu. The microbrewery forms part of the public engagement and outreach activities of the MFL and the wider UCL East objective to engage with local residents and schools.

Dr Sulu said:

“The Microbrewery is a concept that is designed to fulfil the ethos of the campus in one, multi-functional space by bringing in community-based knowledge to share with UCL students, using it as a teaching and research space that links all engineering disciplines, arts, humanities, and social and historical sciences to work with a variety of stakeholders to preserve the past, discover the present, and define the future of food and beverage production”.