In our newest edition of the '3 Questions for' interview format, we spoke to Dr. Francesca Ceroni, located at the Department of Chemical Engineering of Imperial College London. As a Junior Research Fellow, she is making use of bacterial and mammalian synthetic biology to make a difference in bioproduction and biomedicine. Additionally, Dr. Ceroni is also active in the iGEM competition, both as a judge as well as a supervisor.
When and why did you move into the field of synthetic biology?
I had just graduated in Pharmaceutical Biotechnologies when I met a Professor in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bologna
that was looking for an advisor for the Bologna iGEM team.
Synthetic Biology sounded so interesting to me that I decided to give it a try; I was also happy to work with other students in an interdisciplinary environment.
That was it: Synthetic Biology just captured my interest and passion from that moment on and I continued in the field for my PhD, post doc and ... the present.
What is the single most important piece of advice that you would give to a current PhD student or a post-doc?
I would suggest to try to work with people you like, that show vision... choose very well the environment, the people, the once you want to deal with.
That will make a difference in your career.
In which areas do you see the main challenges and opportunities for synthetic biology?
I think there are many challenges, but the one I consider the most difficult to tackle is the complexity of biological systems that impacts on the reliable engineering we want to achieve. We have gone a long way into the understanding and characterisation of the systems we work with, but there is a lot to do and so much diversity to take into account as well.