Lawrence Collins

Lawrence is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Leeds, working at the intersection of chemical biology, bioconjugation, protein engineering and reaction optimisation. His current research forms part of a collaborative project with RIKEN and JAMSTEC in Japan, contributing his knowledge in bioconjugation and peptide synthesis to develop sensing artificial cells as next-generation diagnostic tools.

He completed his PhD at the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Molecules to Product, where he investigated enzymatic protein labelling using transpeptidases such as sortase. This work was applied to a range of systems including antibody-conjugate design and conformational studies of biosynthetic enzymes.

Lawrence translated this work towards commercial impact and spent time out of his research as a Science Entrepreneur Scholar with an overseas secondment at a major biotechnology company. He went on to win the Best Disruptive Food and Drink Business award at the national YES 2024 competition, presenting at the Royal Society in London.

Lawrence is a highly interdisciplinary researcher, with a broad chemical biology toolbox at the bench as well as being an experienced computational scientist, having developed bespoke Python software for automated mass spectrometry analysis and data workflows. He holds an MSc in Chemical Biology and Drug Design with Distinction from the University of Leeds, for which he received the AstraZeneca Prize as the most outstanding graduate of the year. Lawrence also holds a BSc in Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Manchester.