Studying Plant Sciences at Cambridge can open up a wealth of career opportunities. In this series, we hear from Plant Sciences alumni about their experiences of studying here, how it shaped their careers and what they are doing now.
If you would like your alumni story featured, please email us at alumni@plantsci.cam.ac.uk.
About Luke
Luke Browning graduated with a PhD in Plant Biochemistry in 2018, studying at Jesus College. After graduating he stayed in the Department as a post-doctoral researcher before joining global biotech company, abcam. He now works as a protein scientist for Cambridge-based start-up, Xampla, and runs a part-time nanobrewery called the Biochemist Brewery.
What is your favourite memory from your time in the Department of Plant Sciences?
It was fun driving to various fields, digging up plants and bringing them back to the lab for analyses. The connection between the plants in a field and data from experiments was quite rewarding and satisfying. It’s nice to get outside and work in the elements – something I wish I could do more of now.
I really enjoyed the lunchtime seminars with internal and external speakers. While my current position in industry is primarily research and development, there are fewer opportunities to find out what other researchers are working on, and I miss the buzz of learning about entirely new topics from speakers around the globe. I also have great memories of working with my old supervisor, David Hanke, who is a fabulous man.
How did your time in the Department influence your career journey?
My time in the Department was quite inspirational and made me feel glad to have pursued science from a young age. I think working within the Department as a lab technician, PhD student and post-doc all in succession gave me a balanced view of working in research and exposure to different work patterns.
My PhD and post-doc were also fully funded by industry, so while I worked within an academic environment, the industry-driven aims of the research shaped the experience and kept experiments focused. Altogether, I felt like a career in industry longer-term would suit me better, and this is what I have gone on to do. As a local guy with strong roots anchored in Suffolk, I wanted the stability that an industry position brings.
What have you gone on to do since leaving the Department?
After my post-doc contract ended in autumn 2019, I dabbled in teaching and construction for seven months and took some of this time to convert my garage into a dedicated brewing space. Creating a small brewing business from home kept me busy while I searched for scientific roles during the pandemic. I landed my job with abcam right in the middle of the lockdowns, which was a strange time to start a new role!
After a couple years at abcam, however, I was ready to move on and found an amazing opportunity at Xampla, who spun out from the Department of Chemistry in Cambridge. I’ve been with Xampla ever since, and continue to run my nanobrewery in the background, selling online and at local markets and events.
Among other things, I currently lead on two very different projects in Xampla. The first is on protein extraction and processing from waste/by-product feedstocks. The second is on encapsulating probiotics using our plant-based resins. I work across all teams in the business, which is fantastic because I get to pick up new tricks from other disciplines, such as engineering, business development and marketing.
I am not sure that I will keep the brewery on a commercial path in the long-term because it would be too financially risky to leave my current employment to pursue a full-time brewery, and I desperately want to spend more time on my other hobbies. But you never know, things can change!
What do you enjoy most about what you are doing now?
The best thing about working for Xampla is the incredibly varied role I have within the company and the journey we are all on getting our materials on the market. I am primarily a research and development scientist and, like working on a PhD, there plenty of opportunities to run experiments that nobody else has done before.
There are lots of ‘world-firsts’ in Xampla, all run by a team of incredible scientists. We are applying our materials to diverse applications in the market and there is exposure to topics that I am personally interested in, such as nutrition and production of food and beverages at scale.
Being in a small company, I get involved in many things outside my traditional job description. Sometimes I feel like I have the wrong job title, but things move fast, and I love the diversity of projects to work on. Being small and development-focused also avoids some of the rigid work patterns I experienced in my previous role at abcam. Being in full control of my diary and time, having lots of autonomy and impacting the trajectory of the business is what I value most.
Image: Luke Browning in the lab at Xampla. Photo by Georgios Gkotsis.