About Lifefabs

Discover Lifefabs Institute

Lifefabs Institute was founded in June 2024 to foster a safe and inclusive community where all people can learn, create and meaningfully fabricate with the life sciences.

As Biodesign becomes the next innovation frontier, we provide researchers an opportunity to further their projects in an interdisciplinary lab. While making sure researchers’ learning can be shared across local communities and schools to empower the next generation of scientists, engineers and makers.

Lifefabs Institute also hosts MIT Media Lab Lab’s Synthetic Biology Course: HTGAA (How to Grow Almost Anything)

Learn About HTGAA

Our Mission

Lifefabs Mission & Vision

Provide a hub for researchers to invent, build and translate projects into impactful real-world applications.

Support and build a global networked community of residents and researchers that contribute to life science research.

Communities can lead cutting-edge innovation research, leveraging their unique contextual knowledge to produce impactful and inclusive life-science projects.

Lifefabs Institute is uniquely positioned as an Inclusive Innovation Institute. We are committed to activating impactful research projects that directly engage local communities, offering accessible science education, and equipping both novices and experienced researchers with the skills to work safely and effectively at the bench.

Our approach ensures that collaboration brings together academic expertise, industry know-how, and the lived experience of community members. Instead of competing directly with universities in traditional inquiry-led research, Lifefabs focuses on the dynamic design and application of new biological systems, practical innovations, and opportunities for entrepreneurial growth. Education remains at our core: we empower the public to not just observe but participate, from structured courses for novices to the support of independent investigations for passionate members.

Our Strategic Plan

Where We're Headed

Lifefabs Institute’s 2025-2027 Strategic Plan enables and advances Inclusive & Impactful life science research through 3 main objectives:

1. Impactful Innovation

‍Support impactful bioscience research discovery across all levels of researcher focused on global and local challenges relevant to residents.

2. Inclusive Innovation

Integrate local knowledge and support local-led project development.

3. Collaborative Learning

Foster sustainable cutting-edge solutions through industry-project collaborations.

The Labs

Interdisciplinary Research Labs:
Collectively Transforming Ideas

Our Institute is made up of a network of researchers, academics, and residents from a wide range of disciplines, levels and backgrounds.
‍
‍By having our local-resident researchers work alongside academics our projects gain better understanding of their contexts, local contraints and translations, which helps build a community of ideas that solve real issue and become useful in their contexts.

To achieve our mission of supporting impactful research developed by all, we house three research labs as working groups.

Click below to learn more about our research labs.

Living Fabrics Lab

Transforming Textiles to be
programmable & sustainable.

Medical Print Lab

Exploring the future of biomedical printing technologies.

Engineered Living Materials

Evolving future living materials that can grow sense and adapt.

Our Story

Executive Summary

As a local resident of Camden and growing up in Euston, I’ve witnessed firsthand the immense transformation of the area, where pioneering institutions flourished while some residents were left behind. Against this backdrop, Danny Chen and I recognised the urgent need not only for accessible lab space for collaborative research but also for an inclusive space. A space that bridges the gap between local contexts and expertise and world-class research, where everyone can contribute to innovation in the right equitable ecosystem.

One year on, Lifefabs Institute is that space - exisiting to redefine the future of life science and biodesign research by placing community at the centre of its work. Our unique model dismantles barriers between scientific learning, professional science, and public participation working towards blending cutting edge-research, open-education and local changemakers.

The origin and goal of Lifefabs is not about keeping pace with existing institutions for its own sake. It’s about redefining who gets to shape the future of science. I truly believe that true innovation comes from within communities, where resident insights, resources and aspirations meet with global standards and lower barriers to foster authentic collaboration. With our growing team and lab, join us on this journey to catalyse a new era of scientific research in Camden and globally, where everyone can shape tomorrow’s breakthroughs.

Digby Usher & Danny Chen

Digby Usher is a biodesigner and interaction designer with interdisciplinary research and practice-based methods oriented towards material innovation for public health and community co-design.A design lecturer at University of the Arts London he uses critical and creative thinking to design biocompatible public health services and orthotics.

Danny Chen is undertaking a PhD at University College London and is a representative at the WHO focusing on Medical 3D Printing techniques, 3D image segmentation and prototyping Tissue Engineering for Neurosurgery and Cardiac Surgery.His work spans developing biomedical technologies, public health and biomedical manufacturing..