Dr Marcos Valenzuela-Ortega is a postdoctoral research scientist in Professor Stephen Wallace’s lab at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on microbial synthetic biology for industrial biotechnology, currently aiming to generate chemical precursors of nylon in Escherichia coli.

Having worked in the biotech industry before returning to academia, his past work explored the development of cellulose-based consolidated bioprocesses and how new methodologies can accelerate the biotech research cycle, including modular DNA assembly for rapid strain development and novel screening methods.