Meet our new Future Leaders Fellows
05 Oct 2026
Three colleagues to lead bold challenge-led research that promises real-world impact from inside our bodies to out at sea.
Three Manchester researchers have been awarded UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships to lead bold challenge-led research, spanning ocean engineering, wearable healthcare, and biotechnology – with applications ranging from offshore energy and cancer care to sustainable manufacturing.
Backed by a combined £5.4 million from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Dr Samuel Draycott, Dr Lukas Hughes-Noehrer and Dr Richard Obexer are among the recipients of its 2026 Future Leaders Fellowships (FLF) awards. The funding will support four years of ambitious research in fields spanning ocean engineering, biotechnology and digital-enabled health.
Dr Samuel Draycott
How well we understand the ocean matters increasingly for the infrastructure we build, the energy we generate and our response to climate change. Dr Samuel Draycott is investigating what happens when waves break in the complex conditions found in the ocean, with real implications for how we design offshore wind farms and other marine infrastructure, and for improving the accuracy of climate and ocean models that predict how the sea absorbs and releases carbon dioxide and other gases.
“We’ve long relied on simplified models to understand how waves behave, but the real ocean is much more complex,” Samuel explains.
“This matters because engineers use estimates of extreme waves when designing offshore wind turbines, ships and platforms, so a better understanding of wave breaking could help us improve the safety and efficiency of this infrastructure. These are crucial industries, with the UK aiming to increase its offshore wind capacity to at least 43 gigawatts by 2030 and a sector already employing tens of thousands of people.”
Dr Lukas Hughes-Noehrer
Across Manchester's communities, Dr Lukas Hughes-Noehrer is taking research directly into patients’ homes – creating a real-world test environment to help make wearable health technologies a routine part of cancer care. He's working to discover whether continuous data from wearable devices can help NHS clinical teams support patients through cancer surgery, and how to make sure this new model of care reaches everyone, including those at risk of digital exclusion.
“As someone who works at the intersection of healthcare and research, I see first-hand how health inequalities can affect who benefits from new models of care and emerging technologies,” Lukas reveals.
“Wearables have huge potential to provide more personalised, proactive support, but only if everyone can access, use and trust them. By working directly with our communities in Manchester, I want to build a model for wearable-enabled care that is fair, safe and trusted, and that other places in the UK and beyond can follow.”
Dr Richard Obexer
Meanwhile, in another laboratory in Manchester, Dr Richard Obexer has been looking at the world on a different scale – exploring how nature packages enzymes inside tiny structures in living cells. He’s working to discover whether those same principles can be engineered to manufacture medicines, recycle carbon and produce valuable chemicals more efficiently.
“Nature has already evolved incredibly efficient ways of organising chemistry inside cells, and we’re now asking whether we can recreate and engineer these to build tiny biological factories for ourselves,” Richard says.
“If we can combine that with AI-designed proteins, we could make entirely new manufacturing processes possible, from medicines to ways of turning captured carbon into useful products.”
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Their work directly supports our Manchester 2035 strategy, specifically the leap From Research excellence to impact. Find out more at: