Nigel is a relative newcomer to academia. He established the Clostridia Research Group (CRG) in 2004, following 25 years of service in the applied environment of the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research (CAMR), Porton Down. At CAMR he fulfilled a number of different roles, including Head of the Department of Molecular Microbiology as well as Scientific Leader for Molecular Microbiology for the establishment. To date he has filed 15 patents, secured £15.7M in funding since arriving at Nottingham, leads one of the six programmes that together comprise the BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre (BSBEC) and is the PI of a recently awarded BBSRC sLoLa in Synthetic Biology. He belongs to the TMO Renewables Ltd Centre of Excellence in Biorefining, is on the LanzaTech Scientific Advisory Board, consults for Pfizer, MERCK and Ipsen Pharmaceuticals and is the scientific lead on Clostridium difficile research within Nottingham’s NIHR Biomedical Research Unit on Gastrointestinal disease.