Engineering plant rubisco enzymes through high-throughput enzyme assays and cryo-EM (Plant BioDesign PhD Cambridge project)
About the Project
Lead supervisor: Assoc Prof Noam Prywes
Co-supervisors: Dr Johannes Kromdijk and Dr Michael Webster
Postgraduates will be registered with the Department of Biochemistry, School of Biological Sciences (University of Cambridge)
Background: Every year plants remove over 100 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Engineering photosynthesis is a key technological challenge for improving crop yield and resiliency as climate change makes feeding humanity more challenging. Rubisco enzyme engineering has been a longstanding goal within the field because of the key role rubisco plays in carbon fixation. Paradoxically, given its importance, rubisco is a slow enzyme, in many cases limiting plant growth. Enzyme engineering is undergoing a revolution thanks to AI and high throughput screening methods like those developed by us (Prywes et al. 2025 Nature). The project outlined here will help develop these techniques for use in plant rubiscos and will determine the underlying structural biology responsible for rubisco kinetic efficiency and specificity.
Aims: Express Arabidopsis rubisco in an E. coli strain designed to report on rubisco activity. This will require the expression of the large and small subunits in addition to at least 7 folding chaperones.
Screen a library of plant rubisco mutants and measure their fitnesses using high throughput Next Generation Sequencing.
Purify and determine the structures of screening hits in order to reveal the structural determinants of rubisco function.
Train ML models on the screening data to predict mutations or libraries of interest for further screening.
Techniques: The student will become proficient in Plant SynBio techniques including library cloning, NGS screening and analysis, enzyme engineering, proteomics and CryoEM. These skills will serve the student in future projects working in plant molecular biotechnology both in academia and industry.
Training environment: You will be a student in the University of Cambridge Biochemistry Department in the Prywes lab coadvised by Dr. Michael Webster at the John Innes Center. You will work at the intersection of biochemistry and plant science under a new investigator who will provide direct training in the lab. You will make frequent visits to Norwich to learn how to design and implement CryoEM techniques in the Webster lab at the John Innes Center.
Plant BioDesign is a doctoral programme that will train the next generation of scientists to design and engineer plants to tackle global challenges in food security, clean growth, and environmental sustainability. The programme brings together world-leading researchers at the universities of York, Cambridge and Bristol and the John Innes Centre.
Plant BioDesign offers a unique four-year PhD training programme in plant engineering biology incorporating interdisciplinary research with training in engineering principles, advanced lab techniques, non-academic collaboration and professional and leadership development.
Plant BioDesign is part of the TechExpert pilot providing an enhanced annual stipend of £31,000. PGRs will participate in TechExpert activities each year, including outreach to promote tech careers, networking with the TechFirst community and engagement with the tech industry. The aim of the TechExpert pilot is to strengthen the UK’s innovation pipeline and build a more inclusive, resilient and high-impact research ecosystem.
The School of Biological Sciences is a diverse community conducting ground-breaking research. We are committed to fostering inclusive excellence and enthusiastically welcome applications from all ethnic, socioeconomic, cultural, and belief backgrounds and from all genders and sexual orientations. We seek to recruit students from all backgrounds, including those who may not have previously considered Cambridge. If you have the talent and motivation, then Cambridge is for people like you.
Entry Requirements:
You can apply if you have, or are expecting to gain, at least an upper second class honours degree or equivalent. You should have a background in biological, chemical or physical science or mathematics, be passionate about plant engineering biology and keen to develop your research and innovation skills to tackle global challenges. Open to UK (home) students only.
Plant BioDesign is committed to recruiting future engineering biologists regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, disability, sexual orientation or career pathway to date. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, particularly those underrepresented in science, who have curiosity, creativity and a drive to help grow the UK’s capability in engineering biology.
The aim of the TechExpert pilot is to strengthen the UK’s innovation pipeline and build a more inclusive, resilient and high-impact research ecosystem, retaining talented graduates in research roles at doctoral level to upskill for future tech careers and providing a viable way back into these roles for those who are employed.
Plant BioDesign will hold a webinar at 2.30 pm on Wed 10th December to provide more information on the programme and recruitment process. Please register if you wish to attend.
Programme: PhD in Plant BioDesign (4 years)
Start Date: 1st Oct 2026
How to apply:
To submit your application, click on APPLY NOW. You can apply for up to two Plant BioDesign projects (which can be at different institutions).
We advise you to read the questions in the form before submitting your application. Inside the form there is a link to a document for you to see the questions in advance.
Please note that students who need a visa to study in the UK are not eligible to apply for this project.
If you have questions about the application process, please email plant-biodesign-network@york.ac.uk
If you have questions about the project you are interested in, please email the project supervisor noamprywes@gmail.com
How we allocate:
Shortlisting will take place shortly after the closing date and successful applicants will be notified promptly. If you're shortlisted, you'll be invited for an online interview on 27th February 2026. You'll be notified shortly after the interview dates whether your application has been successful, placed on a reserve list or unsuccessful. If you are successful, you'll be offered a visit to the offering institution and asked to confirm your intention to accept the studentship within 14 days.
Application deadline: 5pm on Monday 19th January 2026
Funding Notes
Appointed candidates will be fully-funded for 4 years. The funding includes: tax-free annual stipend (estimated to be £31,000 for the 2026/27 academic year), tuition fees and Research Support and Training Grant (RSTG).