Birmingham researchers secure major funding to push frontiers of bioscience discovery

Researchers from the University of Birmingham have been awarded two prestigious grants from the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to fund innovative research projects.

Of the four Strategic Longer and Larger (sLoLa) grants available, two have been given to University of Birmingham researchers. Both Professor Ferenc Mueller and Professor Jessica Blair from the University of Birmingham’s College of Medicine and Health will use their grants to develop projects which have the potential to lead to a major new contribution to biological knowledge.

Investigating gene expression

Ferenc Mueller, Professor in Developmental Genetics, will coordinate a consortium of researchers who will work together to solve how gene expression is regulated across large chromosomal regions. As the body is intricately organised, it relies on precise gene activation of genes. These genes are controlled by an array of genetic switches called enhancers. Enhancers are often spread out around the genes in large landscapes, which are poorly understood and are collectively referred to as the “dark genome”.

The order and arrangement of enhances have been largely conserved in evolution over hundreds of millions of years. This suggests that fundamental unexplained rules control their arrangement, which the researchers refer to as enhancer semantics and will investigate during the project.  

Professor Ferenc Mueller said: “Deciphering enhancer semantics will advance fundamental knowledge of how gene expression control drives vertebrate development and explain how changes in enhancer arrangements can lead to developmental disorders and even some cancers.”

The project, led by the University of Birmingham, integrates multidisciplinary expertise from the Universities of Edinburgh and Manchester, as well as Imperial College London, the Crick Institute and the European Bioinformatics Institute in multi-omics, genome engineering and synthetic genomics tools. The project will also train nine early-career researchers.

Understanding antibiotic resistance

Jessica Blair, Professor of Antimicrobial Resistance, will use the grant for a research project investigating antibiotic resistance. Antibiotics save lives by killing or stopping harmful bacteria which turns dangerous infections into treatable illnesses. However, bacteria are commonly developing resistance to antibiotics, making infections harder to treat. 

Most antibiotics work by getting inside bacterial cells, where they bind to a particular target to either kill the cell or stop it being able to grow. One way that bacteria become resistant to antibiotics is by preventing this process (intracellular accumulation); by controlling how much antibiotic gets into cells and how much is pumped out of cells.

Birmingham researchers recently found that the way bacteria control how much antibiotic comes in and out of cells changes in different environments, including during infection. Therefore, in this project researchers will aim to understand the fundamental rules applied by bacteria to coordinate and control intracellular accumulation so that they can survive during antibiotic treatment.

Professor Jessica Blair said: “I am incredibly excited to work with an amazing interdisciplinary team to tackle such a fundamentally important question for future treatment of infections.”

The project will involve an interdisciplinary team, including co-investigators Professor Sara Jabbari and Dr Tim Overton from the University of Birmingham’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, alongside Dr Andrew Edwards from Imperial College London, Professor Mark Webber from the Quadram Institute and Dr Dong-Hyun Kim from the University of Nottingham.

Both funded research projects will begin in March 2026 and will receive funding over a period of five years.