Dr. Jim Haseloff

Biography

Jim Haseloff is a plant biologist working at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge. His scientific interests focus on engineering plant morphogenesis through microscopy, molecular genetics, and computational synthetic biology techniques. Prior to joining the Department of Plant Sciences, Jim served as a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, where he developed advanced imaging techniques and modified fluorescent proteins for efficient use in plants. He also worked as a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, focusing on trans-splicing ribozymes. Additionally, Jim spent time at CSIRO Division of Plant Industry in Canberra, where he developed methods for designing synthetic RNA enzymes with novel substrate specificities. His laboratory has adopted the non-vascular plant Marchantia polymorpha as a simple system for testing bioengineering approaches, characterized by morphological simplicity and a straightforward underlying genome structure. The ease of culture and transformation analysis make it an ideal system for experiments involving the reprogramming and development of bioproduction. Jim has developed a suite of computational, imaging, and genetic tools that allow for clear visualization of individual cells in living plant tissues and has established common syntax assembly methods for plant DNA parts used to reprogram metabolism. Furthermore, he established OpenPlant, a hub for exchanging technical frameworks and frugal technologies for international training and capacity building, and led the Biomaker initiative, which aims to bring accessible engineering tools to biologists, physical scientists, and engineers.

Research Interests