Dr. Alfred Fernández-Castané is Lecturer in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and Principal Investigator within the Energy and Bioproducts Research Institute (EBRI) and Aston Institute of Materials Research (AIMR) groups at Aston University. He graduated in Biology by the Universitat de Barcelona (UB, Spain) and afterwards he pursued his MSc in Advanced Biotechnology at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain). He carried out his PhD thesis within the Chemical Engineering Department at UAB and his project focused on the development of a method to directly quantify IPTG in E. coli cytoplasm and medium samples. This methodology led to gaining a better knowledge and understanding of inducible systems, gene regulation and optimization of recombinant protein production. His PhD in Biotechnology was awarded in 2012 and he then moved to France as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the ISSB-Evry where he developed his skills in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. Dr Fernández-Castané joined Dr Overton’s lab in 2014 as a Research Fellow in the €2.4m ERA-IB ProSeCa project at the University of Birmingham (UK). His research interests rely on the development of more sustainable and cost effective bioprocesses for the production of high-value products with industrial interest. Current research areas encompass the production of magnetosomes from magnetotactic bacteria, biodegradable biopolymers and enzymes for biofuels application.