The University of Sheffield
Chemical and Biological Engineering

Dr. Stephen Wilkinson

Dr. Stephen Wilkinson

PhD MA MEng DIC

Careers Liaison

s.j.wilkinson@sheffield.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 114 222 7521
Fax: +44 (0) 114 222 7501

Chemical and Biological Engineering
The University of Sheffield
Sir Robert Hadfield Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD

Research Interests

  • The mammalian p38 MAP kinase and NK-kB signalling pathways
  • Metabolic regulation of microbial gene expression
  • Protein translation in eukaryotes
  • Development of Sentero for simulation and analysis of biochemical networks
  • Proximate Parameter Tuning for fitting large models to scarce data

Teaching

  • CPE421
  • CPE3003
  • CPE6006

Biography

I began studying Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge and ended up graduating in Chemical Engineering in 1992. I then went to the Centre for Process Systems Engineering at Imperial College, London where I was awarded a PhD in 1996 on 'Aggregate Formulations for Large-Scale Process Scheduling Problems'. This research was part-funded by Unilever Research and provided new techniques for solving large-scale supply chain problems which have since been incorporated into commercial software systems.

I then had 3 year spell in the United States working as a Research Engineer for E. I. DuPont de Nemours in Wilmington, Delaware. During this time I applied techniques of mathematical optimization to improve productivity of flexible process plants operating in global supply chains. I continued this theme of work back in the UK working for with Prescient Systems and then Decision Engines Limited providing consultancy and software tools for complex business optimisation problems in the process industries.

Towards the end of this time academia beckoned and I became fascinated by the emerging field of Systems Biology. I went to Manchester University in 2005 as a Pfizer funded Research Fellow working on `Dynamic Modelling of the p38 MAP Kinase Signalling Pathway´ with Professor Douglas Kell. This was followed by a BBSRC funded project on `The Systems Biology of Regulation´ with Professor Hans Westerhoff.

In September 2008 I was appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Sheffield.

pigI am also a founding member of the Pharmaceutical Engineering Interest Group.

Key Papers

Dimelow, R. J. & Wilkinson, S. J. (2009). Control of translation initiation: a model-based analysis from limited experimental data. J R Soc Interface 6, 51-61.

Westerhoff, H. V., Kolodkin, A., Conradie, R., Wilkinson, S. J., Bruggeman, F. J., Krab, K., van Schuppen, J. H., Hardin, H., Bakker, B. M., Mone, M. J., Rybakova, K. N., Eijken, M., van Leeuwen, H. J. & Snoep, J. L. (2009). Systems biology towards life in silico: mathematics of the control of living cells. J Math Biol 58, 7-34.

Wilkinson, S. J., Benson, N. & Kell, D. B. (2008). Proximate parameter tuning for biochemical networks with uncertain kinetic parameters. Mol Biosyst 4, 74-97.

Bevilacqua, A., Wilkinson, S. J., Dimelow, R., Murabito, E., Rehman, S., Nardelli, M., van Eunen, K., Rossell, S., Bruggeman, F. J., Bluthgen, N., De Vos, D., Bouwman, J., Bakker, B. M. & Westerhoff, H. V. (2008). Vertical systems biology: from DNA to flux and back. SEB Exp Biol Ser 61, 65-91.

Ihekwaba, A. E., Wilkinson, S. J., Waithe, D., Broomhead, D. S., Li, P., Grimley, R. L. & Benson, N. (2007). Bridging the gap between in silico and cell-based analysis of the nuclear factor-kappaB signaling pathway by in vitro studies of IKK2. Febs J 274, 1678-90.

Links

Research

ChELSI

PEIG