Research park putting Norfolk on the map as a world-leading centre for science

Yahoo

21-05-2025

From using gut bacteria to protect from cancer to growing rice on the ocean's surface - Norwich Research Park is putting Norfolk on the map as a world-leading centre for science, research and innovation.
Based on the University of East Anglia's campus and the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, the cluster is made up of four research institutes - the John Innes Centre, Quadram Institute, Earlham Institute and Sainsbury Laboratory.
And it is now home to around 50 companies and more than 3,000 early-career researchers.
Norwich Research Park is one of the region's largest employers, home to 50 companies (Image: News Quest) This means it is one of the region's largest employers, with research focussing on three key areas which it calls HP3: healthy plants, people and planet.
Now, armed with more than one million sq ft of planning consent, the research park continues to grow, with work under way to build new laboratories and office space to attract more companies and award-winning scientists to the region.
But while comparisons are often made between Norwich Research Park and Cambridge, the university city has never been its competition.
Roz Bird, chief executive of Anglia Innovation Partnership, which is the campus management organisation at Norwich Research Park, says the park is different to Cambridge, specialising in plant-based science rather than traditional drug discovery.
Roz Bird, CEO of Anglia Innovation Partnership, the campus management organisation at Norwich Research Park (Image: Supplied) Miss Bird, who became chief executive three years ago, said: 'Cambridge is fully focussed on traditional drug discovery using petri-chemicals to make complex compounds that are needed to save people with diseases in hospitals.
'Whereas what we are doing on the human health side is preventing people from getting those diseases in the first place and needing to go to hospital.
"For example, the work our scientists are doing at the John Innes Centre is looking at how we can make drugs for people with diseases using plants.'
Roz Bird, CEO of Anglia Innovation Partnership, the campus management organisation at Norwich Research Park (Image: Supplied) Norwich Research Park's competition instead comes from across the Channel at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, which focusses on "healthy food and living environment".
But despite Miss Bird admitting that the Dutch university is 'years ahead' of Norwich Research Park, she said being based in Norfolk has its advantages with UK precision breeding laws enabling areas of research which cannot be conducted at campuses located elsewhere in Europe.
'The precision breeding act and the enabling legislation in March means looking at DNA structures of plants and snipping and removing certain traits which would take 10 years to do via breeding can now be done in just two weeks in a lab,' she added.
'Gene editing is different from genetically modified food. It is editing genes in a way a plant could do itself through breeding - it is selective breeding, or speed breeding.
"The speed breeding bill [the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act] allows it to be commercialised.
Roz Bird, CEO of Anglia Innovation Partnership, the campus management organisation at Norwich Research Park (Image: Chris Ball Photography) 'People will soon be able to buy gene edited bananas on the shelves of supermarkets in England which they couldn't do before. You can't do that in Europe, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland – only in England.
"That has brought us a competitive advantage over Wageningen because you can't do that in the Netherlands.'
Tropic, based at Norwich Research Park, has developed a variant of Cavendish banana that stays fresh for longer (Image: Tropic) There are over 150 science parks in the UK, but only five are Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) funded research and innovation campuses.
Norwich Research Park is one of them, which means it receives government funding for its strategic research.
The campus is also home to three BBSRC-funded research institutes: the Quadram Institute, John Innes Centre and Earlham Institute – receiving 40pc of BBSRC's strategic funding for its research institutes every year.
Norwich Research Park (Image: Anglia Innovation Partnership) Miss Bird said: 'My job is to maximise the impact of publicly funded research.
'I want to be able to look back at my time here and see that I've created a wide range of jobs for local people in Norfolk, Suffolk and the eastern region.
"That could be through getting entrepreneurs from our science base to start businesses, employing good people and inspiring young people in schools interested in science to take those jobs.
"It could also be getting real estate investment and creating construction jobs, jobs involving the management of buildings and looking after the landscape.
"Scientists of the future, there are going to be great jobs for you here and we would love you to come and work here.
"We want the government to know that we want to turn all the engineering biology that goes on here into economic growth.
"It's about creating jobs, but it's also about the transition from a reliance on petri-chemicals to bio-chemicals, and how can we use biology to save the planet.
"During Covid it was the scientists who saved us and got us back to where we are now. Now it is biology that can save the planet and generate growth in the economy.
"If we've done our job well over the next few years, we want there to be a sense of ownership and pride in Norwich and Norfolk about this place and that we're hosting world-class scientists, creating jobs and saving the planet from the issues threatening its future."
Norwich Research Park is home to around 50 companies, which are either based on-campus in labs and offices or virtual tenants.
The research park's focus is HP3 - healthy plants, people and planet – and serves four global markets: Agri-Biotech, Food Biotech, Industrial Biotech and MedTech.
TROPIC
Tropic uses gene editing to improve crops grown in the world's tropical climates, such as bananas and rice - as well as sugar closer to home.
The food biotech company has been based at Norwich Research Park for eight years - growing from just three people to more than 150.
Tropic has developed a variant of Cavendish bananas that stay fresh for longer (Image: Tropic) Gene editing enables scientists to make precise, targeted changes to plants' DNA to make them resistant to disease, last longer or improve yields.
The process accelerates the results of traditional cross-breeding techniques which can take many years.
Tropic has now developed a variant of the world's most consumed Cavendish banana that will stay fresh for longer.
After being peeled, the banana's flesh remains yellow and firm while retaining its taste for up to 24 hours.
The co-founders of Tropic, Eyal Maori (left) and Gilad Gershon (right) (Image: Tropic) Tropic says the breakthrough will cut down food waste and make growing and distributing bananas more cost efficient - preserving the banana industry and opening up new markets for the fruit to be used in, such as packaged fruit salads and snack pots sold in supermarkets.
Tropic's bananas (Image: Tropic)COLORIFIX
Colorifix creates sustainable dye for the fashion and textile industries from plants, insects, animals and microbes.
Instead of physically extracting the pigment, it looks at the DNA of organisms and identifies the codes for the genes that produce the pigment.
Colorifix has developed an ingenious new technology to dye fabrics and reduce the environmental impact of the fashion industry (Image: Colorifix) It then builds that DNA code and inserts it into microbes such as yeast or a bacteria, which are fed sugar and nitrogen in a fermenter with water in the same way beer is brewed that converts them into pigment or dye.
Colorifix spun out of Cambridge University and has been based at Norwich Research Park since 2016.
Its process reduces the levels of water consumption, electricity usage, pollution and carbon emissions compared to conventional dye production methods, reducing environmental impact.
The DNA code is inserted into yeast or bacteria which are fed with sugar and nitrogen in a fermenter (Image: Colorifix) Colorifix's hopes its process will help existing brands and manufacturers shift away from chemistry to biology.
PFBIO
PfBio is developing bacteria-based products as alternatives to synthetic agrochemicals that will boost plant health and protect crops from major agricultural diseases.
Dr Rosaria Campilongo, cheif executive of PfBIO at Norwich Research Park, is creating microbial solutions to protect crops (Image: One on One Communications) Many pesticides and other agrochemicals have already been withdrawn from the market because of their detrimental impact on the environment, so farmers are now having to move away from conventional chemical-dominated agriculture to more sustainable and eco-friendly methods.
PfBio spun out of the John Innes Centre in 2022 and has now developed technology that helps to identify the best natural biocontrol and plant-biostimulant bacteria strains so that it can create bioproducts tailored to specific crops and crop diseases.
The resulting plant treatments are kind to the environment and can be used as effective alternatives to conventional agrochemicals.
Dr Rosaria Campilongo, chief executive of PfBIO (Image: One on One Communications)ALORA
Alora is pioneering a technique to grow rice on the surface of the world's oceans.
It has developed a patented genetic design that will enable its rice crop to grow in the highly salinated ocean environment.
What Alora's ocean agriculture systems could look like (Image: Alora) It means crops can be grown without fertiliser or fresh water while achieving increased yields and incurring lower production costs.
It has already developed a salt-tolerance trait allowing rice to grow in environments of up to 50pc the salinity of the oceans.
Its revolutionary technology is set to increase yields, use zero fresh water and minimal land.
Luke Young and Rory Hornby, co-founders of Alora, at Norwich Research Park (Image: Alora) Alora arrived at Norwich Research Park from Canada in April last year after going through the IndieBio biotech accelerator programme based in San Francisco, California.
BIOSCOPIC
MedTech company Bioscopic is developing research undertaken at the Quadram Institute which discovered that infant gut bacteria could hold the key to protecting humans from serious diseases and conditions in adulthood, like cancer.
Dr Chris Price, CEO of Bioscopic (Image: Supplied) It is investigating ways to reintroduce those bacteria into humans by replicating their compounds.
The Bioscopic team believes that reintroducing friendly bacteria into a person's gut can reduce the risk of them getting inflammatory diseases.
The breakthrough could have significant implications for improving people's health, specifically against diseases like cancer.
Dr Chris Price, CEO of Bioscopic (Image: Supplied) Once the team can work out the multitude of different compounds that can be found they will then look to replicate and manufacture these and not have to rely on using live bacteria.
TRAITSEQ
TraitSeq has developed a technology that uses machine learning methods to enable highly precise trait performance predictions to be made that could significantly enhance the speed and efficiency of breeding and product selection processes for the agri-biotech industry.
Dr Joshua Colmer, CEO and co-founder of TraitSeq (Image: Chris Ball) The company spun our of the Earlham Institute and recently it announced a new collaboration with large agri-tech company Syngenta - a world leader in developing the next generation of biologicals products for agricultural use.
TraitSeq's technology in the development of innovative, high-performance biostimulants will be used with Syngenta's extensive knowledge of crop biology to identify highly specific indicators of a plant's cellular state, called biomarkers, that will help to identify a crop's ability to utilise available nutrients in the soil.
Felicity Knowles, COO and co-founder of TraitSeq (Image: Oneonone Communications) This will enable them to quickly and accurately assess the efficacy of new biostimulants, products applied to plants, seeds or the root environment that enhance natural plant processes in enhancing plant health.
The development of such biostimulants will also support farmers transition to regenerative practices.
CELLEXCEL
CellExcel is taking advantage of the rapid growth forecast for the use of composite materials in industry.
Dr Jack Andrew, principal technologist at CellExcel (Image: Oneonone Communications) With a growing focus on sustainability, the company has launched a new technology to enhance the performance and increase the usage of plant-based materials, such as flax and hemp, in manufacturing to replace materials like fibre glass reinforced resins and carbon fibre reinforcing materials, that are used to make components such as panels for cars, aircraft and high performance bicycles.
Traditional composites like these consume a massive amount of energy in their manufacture and thus create high CO2 emissions.
CellExcel's technology is forecast to extend and accelerate the adoption of bio materials, leading to a significant reduction in greenhouse gases.
IKAROVEC
Ikarovec is looking to advance gene therapy to combat the most common eye diseases that cause major sight loss in millions of people globally.
It is focused on developing next-generation gene therapies to treat chronic eye diseases.
Andy Osbourne, head of biology at Ikarovec (Image: Ikarovec) This funding boost will accelerate its ambitions to become a leader in addressing complex, poorly managed ocular conditions. It has been successful in securing seed funding of £8m from prominent UK investors.
The injection of funds will allow it to fast-track its program development, enhance its research and development efforts and expand its team in Norwich, taking on more space at Enterprise House.
VIRILITAS
Virilitas spun out of research conducted at UEA and is addressing male infertility with innovative at-home fertility tests and interventional tools.
Challenges in male reproductive health can affect family planning, relationships and overall well-being.
Despite the importance of this issue, there has been a limited range of effective solutions.
It aim to provide men with greater control over their reproductive journeys, reducing the pressures and uncertainties that can arise.
Through cutting-edge molecular and genomics approaches, it is creating a dynamic ecosystem of interventions designed to empower men at every stage of their reproductive journeys.
INSPIRALIS
Inspiralis is a spin-out from the John Innes Centre that supplies a type of enzyme known as topoisomerases in the form of easy-to-use kits to the pharmaceutical industry and academia to aid research into anti-infectives and anti-cancer drugs, specifically when dealing with DNA.
Natassja Bush, CEO of Inspiralis (Image: Inspiralis) The enzymes themselves are present naturally in all organisms, but what Inspiralis does that is so unique is that it makes these enzymes. Eighty percent of the kits that Inspiralis makes are exported worldwide to countries such as Japan, China, the US, Europe and Australia.
Inspiralis kit (Image: Inspiralis) The battle to develop new drugs and treatments to combat some of the more serious conditions that the human species has to contend with is ongoing as resistance to them develops.
The kits made by Inspiralis will help develop treatments that can be delivered quicker and more effectively.