Dr Leonardo Rios was awarded a lectureship at the Engineering School of the University of Edinburgh in 2017, where he leads his research the group at the Institute for Bioengineering and the Centre for Synthetic and Systems Biology. His research motivation focuses on promoting further understanding on the interphase of Biochemical Engineering and Synthetic Biology as well as to find novel ways to apply this knowledge to tackle the growing socio-economic inequalities. In more details, Dr Rios’s research group focuses on applying synthetic biology tools to engineer microbial cell factories to produce high-value products such as biofuels, biomaterials and pharmaceuticals Dr Rios ‘s group strongly believes that boosting the production and maximising the potential of their microbial cell factories requires the parallel development of novel bioprocesses to cater to the new qualities of the engineered cells. Dr Rios is also interested in entrepreneurial activities, co-founding startups Marizca LTD and Logykopt."