Dr Adam Brown

School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering

Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor)

Deputy Director of Research (CBE) – Commercialisation

adam.brown@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 7608

Room G54, Sir Robert Hadfield Building

Full contact details

Dr Adam Brown
School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering
Room G54
Sir Robert Hadfield Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD

Profile

I was appointed as Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Biopharmaceutical Engineering in 2018, and subsequently as Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in 2021. My research group collaborates with biotechnology companies in the U.K, U.S, Europe and Asia to develop technologies that improve the manufacture and performance of protein, DNA, mRNA, cell and viral vector products. Specifically, we engineer mammalian biological components with enhanced in vitro/in vivo performance (e.g. genetic expression vectors, cell factories, product sequences). I am also the CTO and co-founder of SynGenSys, a spin-out company providing synthetic genetic systems for next generation biomedicines and bioprocesses.

Examples of current and recently completed bioindustrial academic collaborations:

High-throughput CHO cell reprogramming for next-generation product manufacturing
Design and engineering of biological components for mRNA manufacturing
Cell and vector engineering for AAV production by HEK cells
Engineering gene therapies to tailor in vivo immunostimulatory responses
Engineering gene therapies to enhance in vivo expression duration
Engineering inducible expression systems for recombinant protein and AAV manufacturing systems
Design of synthetic genetic constructs for dendritic cell gene therapy
Engineering synthetic signal peptides for recombinant protein production in CHO cells
Design and engineering of CHO cell hosts to manufacture difficult-to-express proteins
Engineering synthetic promoters for recombinant protein production in CHO cells
Synthetic Biology Based Engineering of AAV Production by HEK Cells
Designing and testing synthetic genetic parts for protein production in Chinese Hamster Ovary cells

Research interests

Engineering synthetic genetic constructs for biopharmaceutical design and manufacturing
Controlling and analysing mammalian gene/protein expression
Engineering mammalian cell factories for biopharmaceutical production
Whole system engineering for biomanufacturing of therapeutic mRNA, DNA, AAV and protein products
Mammalian synthetic biology

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students and PDRAs. If you are interested in projects in any of the above research areas, contact me for further information.

Publications

Journal articles

Curry E, Sedelnikova S, Rafferty J, Hulley M, Pohle M, Muir G & Brown A (2024) Expanding the RNA polymerase biocatalyst solution space for mRNA manufacture. Biotechnology Journal, 19(6). View this article in WRRO
O’Neill P, Mistry RK, Brown AJ & James DC (2023) Protein-specific signal peptides for mammalian vector engineering. ACS Synthetic Biology, 12(8), 2339-2352. View this article in WRRO
Johari YB, Scarrott JM, Pohle TH, Liu P, Mayer A, Brown AJ & James DC (2022) Engineering of the CMV promoter for controlled expression of recombinant genes in HEK293 cells. Biotechnology Journal. View this article in WRRO
Johnson AO, Fowler SB, Webster CI, Brown AJ & James DC (2022) Bioinformatic design of dendritic cell-specific synthetic promoters. ACS Synthetic Biology, 11(4), 1613-1626.
Patel YD, Brown AJ, Zhu J, Rosignoli G, Gibson SJ, Hatton D & James DC (2021) Control of Multigene Expression Stoichiometry in Mammalian Cells Using Synthetic Promoters.. ACS Synth Biol.
Johari YB, Mercer AC, Liu Y, Brown AJ & James DC (2021) Design of synthetic promoters for controlled expression of therapeutic genes in retinal pigment epithelial cells.. Biotechnol Bioeng.
Cartwright JF, Arnall CL, Patel YD, Barber NOW, Lovelady CS, Rosignoli G, Harris CL, Dunn S, Field RP, Dean G , Daramola O et al (2020) A platform for context-specific genetic engineering of recombinant protein production by CHO cells. Journal of Biotechnology, 312, 11-22.
Johari YB, Brown AJ, Alves CS, Zhou Y, Wright CM, Estes SD, Kshirsagar R & James DC (2019) CHO Genome Mining for Synthetic Promoter Design. Journal of Biotechnology. View this article in WRRO
Brown AJ, Gibson SJ, Hatton D, Arnall CL & James DC (2019) Whole synthetic pathway engineering of recombinant protein production. Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 116(2), 375-387. View this article in WRRO
Brown AJ, Gibson SJ, Hatton D & James DC (2017) In silico design of context-responsive mammalian promoters with user-defined functionality. Nucleic Acids Research, 45(18), 10906-10919. View this article in WRRO
Brown AJ, Gibson S, Hatton D & James DC (2017) Transcriptome-based identification of the optimal reference CHO genes for normalisation of qPCR data. Biotechnology Journal. View this article in WRRO
Brown AJ & James DC (2017) Constructing Strong Cell Type-Specific Promoters Through Informed Design, 131-145.
Brown AJ & James DC (2016) Precision control of recombinant gene transcription for CHO cell synthetic biology. Biotechnology Advances, 34(5), 492-503.
Brown AJ, Sweeney B, Mainwaring DO & James DC (2015) NF-κB, CRE and YY1 elements are key functional regulators of CMV promoter-driven transient gene expression in CHO cells. Biotechnology Journal, 10(7), 1019-1028.
Brown AJ, Sweeney B, Mainwaring DO & James DC (2014) Synthetic promoters for CHO cell engineering. Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 111(8), 1638-1647.
Brown AJ, Mainwaring DO, Sweeney B & James DC (2013) Block decoys: Transcription-factor decoys designed for in vitro gene regulation studies. Analytical Biochemistry, 443(2), 205-210.
Curry E, Muir G, Qu J, Kis Z, Hulley M, Brown A & Brown A () Engineering an Escherichia coli based in vivo mRNA manufacturing platform. Biotechnology and Bioengineering.
Sou SN, Harris CL, Williams R, Kozub D, Zurlo F, Patel YD, Kallamvalli Illam Sankaran P, Daramola O, Brown A, James DC , Hatton D et al () CHO synthetic promoters improve expression and product quality of biotherapeutic proteins. Biotechnology Progress. View this article in WRRO
Johari YB, Jaffé SRP, Scarrott JM, Johnson AO, Mozzanino T, Pohle TH, Maisuria S, Bhayat‐Cammack A, Lambiase G, Brown AJ , Tee KL et al () Production of Trimeric SARS‐CoV‐2 Spike Protein by CHO Cells for Serological COVID‐19 Testing. Biotechnology and Bioengineering.

Chapters

(2017) Protein Therapeutics Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA
Brown AJ, Kalsi D, Fernandez-Martell A, Cartwright J, Barber NOW, Patel YD, Turner R, Bryant CL, Johari YB & James DC () Expression Systems for Recombinant Biopharmaceutical Production by Mammalian Cells in Culture, Methods and Principles in Medicinal Chemistry (pp. 423-467). Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA

Patents

Brown AJ, James DC, Gibson SJ & Hatton D (2018) In silico design of mammalian promoters with user-defined functionality. WO 2018/193072 A1 Appl. 25 Oct 2018.
James DC & Brown AJ (2015) Synthetic promoters for CHO cells, methods of producing synthetic promoters using transcription factor binding site modules. WO2015079053-A2; WO2015079053-A3 Appl. 08 Oct 2015.
James DC & Brown AJ (2014) Regulating recombinant gene expression in vitro comprises providing a host cell encoding recombinant genes for expression, and contacting the cell with an exonuclease resistant block decoy. WO2014202640-A1 Appl. 24 Dec 2014.

Preprints

Curry E, Muir G, Qu J, Kis Z, Hulley M & Brown A (2023) Engineering an E. coli -based in vivo mRNA manufacturing platform, Authorea, Inc..
O’Neill P, Mistry RK, Brown AJ & James DC (2023) Protein-specific signal peptides for mammalian vector engineering, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Johari YB, Jaffé SRP, Scarrott JM, Johnson AO, Mozzanino T, Pohle TH, Maisuria S, Bhayat-Cammack A, Brown AJ, Tee KL , Jackson PJ et al () Production of Trimeric SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein by CHO Cells for Serological COVID-19 Testing, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Grants: My lab is currently utilising research funding from UKRI and bioindustry (e.g., AstraZeneca, Lonza, CGTC, Takeda) to engineer synthetic biological components for i) enhanced production of therapeutic proteins, nucleic acids and viral vectors, and ii) improved in vivo performance of ATMPs.

Teaching activities: I currently lead a module on Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing (CPE336/CPE6043), and supervise 4th Year BioEng/ChemEng and MSc research projects (CPE440/CPE6011). Awards: Commendation for Teaching Excellence - 2015-16, 2016-17, 2018-19; Best Lecturer (Level 3) – 2019/20