Life sciences interface

Supporting innovation in the Life Sciences and making a significant and distinctive contribution to science and technology is a key focus at Heriot-Watt University.

Connecting expertise

We are working to connect the work of biologists with that of mathematicians and statisticians to provide new modelling tools; with chemists in pharmaceuticals research; with physicists and engineers in the development of instrumentation; and with chemical engineers in translating biochemical processing from the laboratory to the industrial scale.

Our aim is to increase our capacity in advanced bio-molecular science relevant to human biology, and develop and exploit more fully the interfaces of this and related life science activities with our other science and technology interests.

Leading research groups

We have leading research groups across the areas of mathematical, statistical and computational aspects of biology, cell and chemical biology, and life science engineering. We are working to link our research at all levels, from molecular and cellular to the process level, encompassing the target areas of medicines and biomolecules, imaging and monitoring, biological optimisation of chemical processes and environmental biotechnology.

Key initiatives