3 Questions for Dr. Francesca Ceroni

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.