Eriko Takano

Eriko Takano is a professor of synthetic biology and a director of the Synthetic Biology Research Centre for Fine and Speciality Chemicals (SYNBIOCHEM) at the University of Manchester. She develops antibiotics and other high-value chemicals using microbial synthetic biology tools.

Early life and education Takano was born in Japan. She studied pharmacy at Kitasato University and graduated in 1985. and she was appointed a postdoctoral researcher in the molecular biology department. She was made a Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the University of Groningen in 2006 and promoted to associate professor in 2010. Her software contributions includes antiSMASH These can include the secondary biosynthetic pathways that have been identified from any genome sequence. Genome sequencing offers new opportunities to find production pathways for antibiotics. Takano is developing robotic systems to explore the potential biosynthetic pathways, testing thousands of new compounds every year.

Takano is a director of the European Centre of Excellence Synthetic Biology Research Centre for Fine and Speciality Chemicals (SYNBIOCHEM). In 2015 Vince Cable announced a £10 million investment into Synthetic Biology to the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, University of Manchester.

Awards and honours Her awards and honours include;

1993 Italian Society for General Microbiology Lepetit Award include;

antiSMASH 3.0—a comprehensive resource for the genome mining of biosynthetic gene clusters