Grants & Awards
Grants
2025
“BioAcrylic Acid: Valorising Seaweed”. Ceres AgriTech (IC5ATGP4). Mar 2025. Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI). Grant to study the feasibility of bioacrylic acid production from seaweeds. £49,981.
“Marine Microbiology and Marine Organic Sulfur Cycle”. International Collaboration Fund, National Science Foundation China. Jan 2025. Principal Investigator (PI). Multidisciplinary study investigating the mechanisms of DMSP synthesis in diverse organisms. £658,833.
2024
“Centre for Advanced Environmental Microbiology”. Wolfson Foundation, R.C. Snelling Charitable Trust and an embargoed Charity. Apr-Sep 2024. Proposal conceiver and Co-PI. To enhance UEA microbiology research facilities and combat climate change. £1,600,000.
“Improving stress tolerance in plants”. Ceres AgriTech. Jul 2024. Co-Investigator (Co-I). Applying lab and field work to the development of novel algal biostimulants for agriculture. £132,000.
2023
“DMSP synthesis via a novel enzyme in cyanobacteria and diverse bacteria”. NERC pushing the frontiers grant (NE/X014428/1). Apr 2023. Co-PI. Multidisciplinary study to investigate the importance of cyanobacteria to DMSP cycling in sediments and seas. £615,011.
“Using DMSP to improve stress tolerance in plants”. UEA Innovation Catalyst Fund. Apr 2023. Co-PI. Ground-proofing work to develop novel biostimulants for agriculture from algae. £20,000.
2022
“DiMethylSulfonioPropionate cycling In Terrestrial environments (DMSP InTerrest)”. NERC standard grant (NE/X000990/1). Oct 2022. PI. Multidisciplinary study to investigate the mechanisms and importance of microbial DMSP cycling in terrestrial systems. £504,347.
“Core Carbonate Chemistry Equipment”. EPSRC (EP/X034860/1). Sep 2022. Co-I. Core equipment grant to fund multidisciplinary research facing biogeochemistry and climate. £445,036.
“Earth's coolest organosulfur molecule: understanding how agriculture can be more cooling to the climate”. BBSRC and NERC rapid response grant (BB/X005968/1). Mar 2022. Co-PI. Multidisciplinary study of DMSP production and cycling linked to land crops. £159,936.
2021
“Oh I do like to grow beside the seaside: understanding how and why plants produce DMSP”. NERC standard grant (NE/V000756). Jan 2021. Co-I. Molecular genetic identification and characterisation of DMSP production in diverse plants. £555,291.
2020
“Bioacrylic acid from seaweed”. Ceres AgriTech. Dec 2020. PI. Applied Research to develop IP for bioproducing high-value chemicals from seaweeds. £50,000.
“DMSOP, a missing link in the global sulfur cycle”. Leverhulme Trust grant (RPG-2020-413). Nov 2020. PI. Molecular genetic characterisation of DMSOP production and catabolism in model bacteria and diverse marine environments. £226,422.
“UEA Proof of Concept Innovation Fund”. UEA. Aug 2020. PI. To develop a microbial system for bio-acrylic acid generation from DMSP in algal/agricultural waste. £50,000.
“SETsquared Innovation to the commercialisation of university research (ICURe) Programme”. UKRI and Innovate UK. Aug 2020. Co-I. Researched the feasibility and market for ‘Microbial production of bio-acrylic acid’ and established industrial collaborations to develop IP. £41,730.
2019
“SIMbRICS: Sea ice microbiology and the role in cycling of sulfur”. NERC directed grant (NE/S002596/1). Jul 2019. Co-I. Studied how seasonality, sea ice and water properties in the Arctic affect microbial cycling of organosulfur compounds and climate. £374,583.
“New high resolution mass spectrometry facilities for macromolecules and metabolites at UEA”. BBSRC (BB/T017708/1). Oct 2019. CoI. Core equipment grant to improve UEA facilities. £489,999.
“SIMbRICS: Sea ice microbiology and the role in cycling of sulfur”. NERC directed grant (NE/S002596/1). Mar 2019. Co-I. Grant to study how seasonality, sea ice and water properties in the Arctic affect microbial cycling of organosulfur compounds and climate. £305,950.
2018
“Organosulfur cycling in abundant anoxic marine sediments: a case study of saltmarsh sediments”. NERC standard grant (NE/S001352/1). Sep 2018. PI. Multidisciplinary study to investigate the production, cycling and importance of DMSP and related sulfur compounds in coastal sediments. £421,338.
2017
“REMineralisation of organic carbon by marine bActerIoplanktoN (REMAIN) - reducing the known unknown”. NERC standard grant (NE/R000956/1). Dec 2017. Co-I. Multidisciplinary investigation of effective ways to study respiration in marine systems. £640,634.
“A multidisciplinary study of DMSP production and lysis - from enzymes to organisms to process modelling”. NERC standard grant (NE/P012671/1). Apr 2017. PI. Multidisciplinary study of the organisms, genes and pathways producing and cycling organosulfur compounds in coastal waters and their environmental impacts. £441,387.
2016
“Bacteria make DMSP – how significant is this process?”. NERC standard grant (NE/N002385/1). Jan 2016. PI. Multidisciplinary study of the significance of bacterial DMSP production, built on our novel discoveries that diverse prokaryotes make DMSP and the key enzyme they use. £362,311.
2015
“Metals in Biology PoC”. BBSRC grant (POCMiB002). Aug 2015. Co-I. Grant to support the generation of plasmids to enhance metal cofactor production in fermentation for industry. £79,993.
“The mechanism of polar growth of Rhizobium leguminosarum”. The John & Pamela Salter Charitable Trust. Jan 2015. Co-I. Small grant to build on genetic and microscopic observations that rhizobia exhibit polar growth. £2,700.
2014
“A novel pathway for the production of the climate-cooling gas dimethyl sulfide – how important is the mddA gene to global DMS emissions?”. NERC standard grant (NE/M004449/1). Nov 2014. PI. Multidisciplinary study of the significance of DMS production from methanethiol in diverse environments to build on our novel discovery of this pathway and the key enzyme responsible. £372,900.
2012
“How do eukaryotic phytoplankton produce the most abundant organo-sulphur compound in the world’s oceans?”. NERC standard grant (NE/J01138X/1). Aug 2012. PI. Grant to elucidate and study the enzymes for DMSP synthesis in diverse phytoplankton. £397,733.
2011
“Making and breaking dimethylsulfoniopropionate”. The John & Pamela Salter Charitable Trust. Jan 2011. PI. Small grant to produce a cDNA expression library from DMSP-producing algae. £2,000.
2010
“Biochemical and genetic diversity of a critical step in the sulphur cycle – molecular studies of bacterial dimethyl sulphide production”. BBSRC grant (BB/H002642/1). May 2010. Co-I. Multidisciplinary study of the diversity of DMSP cleavage mechanisms in marine microorganisms and environments. £358,906.
“Making and breaking DMS by salt marsh microbes – populations and pathways, revealed by stable isotope probing and molecular techniques”. NERC standard grant (NE/H008586/1). Apr 2010. Co-I. Multidisciplinary study using DNA stable-isotope probing and multiomics to elucidate organisms, genes and pathways driving DMSP cycling in saltmarsh environments. £149,394.
2009
“Unravelling the regulatory complexity of dimethylsulphoniopropionate (DMSP) catabolism in the marine bacterium Roseovarius nubinhibens”. Society for General Microbiology. Jul 2009. PI. Grant to fund a summer postgraduate intern student to study the regulation of DMSP catabolism in a model marine bacterium with multiple catabolic pathways. £1,780.
2006
“Molecular analysis of gene regulators in the remarkable iron-ome of the symbiotic bacterium Rhizobium”. BBSRC grant (BB/E003400/1). Nov 2006. Co-PI. Molecular studies on the global regulatory mechanisms of iron homeostasis in symbiotic rhizobia, which are distinct to those in E. coli. £423,747.
Awards
Prof Jonathan Todd and Dr Ana Bermejo Martinez won the 2021 UEA Innovation Award for Outstanding Commercialisation of Research.
"Acrylic acid is one of the most mass-produced chemicals in the world. Currently it can only be manufactured from fossil fuels. Global concern over greenhouse gas emissions has encouraged policy makers and industry to consider bio-based chemical production. However, current bio-production alternatives are either prohibitively costly or inefficient for industrial scale. The team’s novel methodology uses seaweed waste to create acrylic acid. This reduces processing costs and product carbon emissions. The proprietary process avoids the limitations of the current generation of bio-based chemicals. It also offers greater efficiency and the opportunity to scale to meet industrial demand."