Dek Woolfson

Woolfson was Principal Investigator and Director of the UKRI-funded Synthetic Biology Research Centre, BrisSynBio at the University of Bristol. He is director of the Bristol BioDesign Institute at the University of Bristol and founding director of the Max Planck-Bristol Centre for Minimal Biology. In 2019 he founded the spin-out company Rosa Biotech.

The following year, Woolfson was appointed Lecturer and later Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Sussex, where he worked until 2005. Since 2005, Woolfson has held a joint chair between the Schools of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Bristol.

Woolfson undertook post-doctoral research at University College London (1991–1992), and at the University of California, Berkeley (1992–1994), before accepting a Lectureship in Biochemistry at the University of Bristol from 1994 to 1995.

Derek Dek Woolfson (born 7 July 1965) is a British chemist and biochemist. He is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry. and director of the Bristol BioDesign Institute at the University of Bristol, and founder of synthetic biology spin-out company Rosa Biotech.

Woolfson was born on 7 July 1965 in Birmingham, UK. He attended King's Norton Boys' School (1976–1983). Woolfson was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the University of Oxford in 1987, doing undergraduate research with Christopher M. Dobson. He obtained his PhD in chemistry and biochemistry from the University of Cambridge in 1991 under the supervision of Prof. D. H. Williams (chemistry) and Dr. P. A. Evans (biochemistry).