Ian Taylor
Fireside chat: 28 October, 9.30am
Ian Taylor, an MP 1987-2010, was Minister of Science, Space & Technology 1994-7. He later chaired the Parliamentary & Scientific Committee and co-chaired the Space Committee. Ian gained the Sir Arthur C. Clarke Award for Individual Achievement in Promoting Space and Science (2008).
Ian is a director of Living PlanIT having been chairman 2008-2017. The company is developing an open standards software operating system for urban areas, connecting devices, sensors, and infrastructure. He also Chairs the UK Innovation & Science Seed fund UKi2s (formerly Rainbow Seed Fund) Advisory Board: the Fund invests equity capital on behalf of leading UK publicly funded research organisations to kick-start ventures emerging from the research base. Ian is a Strategic Advisor to Inmarsat plc on various projects including GNSS and during the last 12 years has served, at various times, as a non-executive director of several companies.
Deirdre Black
Science Horizons: 28 October, 10.00am
Deirdre Black is Head of Research & Innovation at the Royal Society of Chemistry. She oversees the RSC’s scientific programmes and networks, engaging the UK and international chemical sciences community to advance research and its translation into innovative solutions. Her role includes horizon-scanning and futures, identifying trends in fundamental science and applications to global and industrial challenges, situated within the wider policy and societal context. Deirdre is a member of the Board of the European Technology Platform for Sustainable Chemistry.
She has a PhD in physics and held postdoctoral positions in the USA and UK. She also worked at Project 2061, a science education policy unit at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC. She joined the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2011.
Garry Pairaudeau
Digital Chemistry: 28 October, 2.15pm
Garry Pairaudeau is currently Head of Hit Discovery in Discovery Sciences; the group comprising HTS, Comp Chem, Virtual Screening and DEL is responsible for generating high quality starting points for AstraZeneca. In addition, the group works extensively with academic centres of excellence through Open Innovation and strategic collaborations with groups such as MRC, CRUK, Life Arc and many others to help incubate novel biology and academic drug discovery.
Garry joined AstraZeneca in 1994 as a medicinal chemist and was part of the chemistry team that discovered Brilinta. He has experience leading projects through all phases of Drug Discovery contributing to multiple clinical candidates in the respiratory, inflammation and CV areas. Garry also chairs the Global Chemistry Leadership team responsible for setting a strategic direction for development of Chemistry in AstraZeneca. He is passionate about innovation and building new transformative capabilities in Machine Learning Augmented Design, Synthesis, Automation and capabilities.
Andy Cooper
Digital Chemistry: 28 October, 2.15pm
Andy Cooper is a Nottingham graduate (1991), obtaining his PhD there in 1994 with Prof. Martyn Poliakoff, FRS. After his PhD, he held an 1851 Fellowship and a Royal Society NATO Fellowship at the University of North Carolina, going on to hold a Ramsay Memorial Research Fellowship at the Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis in Cambridge before joining Liverpool in 1999, initially as a Royal Society University Research Fellow.
He is the founding Director of the Centre for Materials Discovery (est. in 2007) and is the Academic Director of the new Materials Innovation Factory (MIF). Previously, he was Head of Chemistry in Liverpool (2007–2009), and was the first Head of the School of Physical Sciences over the period Jan. 2010–Dec. 2011. He has also previously served on the University Council. In 2015, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Andy’s research interests are polymeric materials, porous organic cages, crystal engineering, supercritical fluids, CO2 capture, materials for energy production, and high-throughput materials methodology.
Mark Warne
Digital Chemistry: 28 October, 2.15pm
Mark Warne, was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of DeepMatter Group plc in July 2018. Mark is widely recognised in the UK and International life sciences sector, having spent almost 10 years at IP Group Plc, a leading intellectual property commercialisation company. He led the Healthcare team and managed a portfolio of £330m of net assets in 2016/2017, representing IP Group on the boards of both listed and private companies.
In 2018, concurrent with the integration of Touchstone Innovations into IP Group, Mark became a Partner in the Life Sciences division. He joined IP Group from pre-clinical drug discovery CRO, Exelgen, where he was Managing Director. Mark spent eight years at Exelgen (formerly Tripos Discovery Research) where he also held positions in licensing and strategic affairs, project management and research. He has a PhD in Computational Chemistry, an MSc in Colloid Science and a BSc in Chemistry, all from the University of Bristol. Mark is a Chartered Chemist and member of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He serves as a non-executive director on the boards of hVIVO plc and Ixico plc.
Sarah Trice
Digital Chemistry: 28 October, 2.15pm
Sarah Trice, Ph.D. is the Managing Director of the Cheminformatics Technologies Business Unit at MilliporeSigma (Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany) based in Boston Massachusetts. She has worked extensively in the synthetic chemistry space for more than a decade. Through close collaborations with the chemistry community she has led the development, manufacturing, and distribution of enabling technologies for synthetic chemists with her current efforts focused on the development and commercialization of SYNTHIA™ Retrosynthesis Software (formally referred and currently published as “Chematica”). Prior to joining MilliporeSigma in 2014, she served in a variety of roles at Merck & Co., including Senior Scientist in Medicinal Chemistry, where she worked to design and evaluate novel chemotherapeutics for HIV infection. She later led an interdepartmental catalytic screening center, providing expert chemical support to internal medicinal chemists.
Dr. Trice received her doctorate in organic chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in the laboratory of Dr. Gary Molander and her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Northern Arizona University. She is currently a 2020 Executive MBA candidate at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
Iain Thomas
Collaboration: 28 October, 3.00pm
Iain heads Cambridge Enterprise’s Life Science team. The team is responsible for technology in fields as diverse as therapeutics, diagnostics, biofuels, IVF and agritech. Spin-outs from Cambridge University include Mission Therapeutics, Cambridge Epigenetix, XO1 Therapeutics, Z-factor, Phoremost, Predictimmue and Polyprox; XO1 was sold to Janssen for an undisclosed sum.
Iain led discussions with GSK in respect of the University of Cambridge–GSK open innovation drug discovery initiative based at the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst, founded (with others) Apollo Therapeutics an innovative vehicle for developing early stage therapeutic opportunities from three Universities (Cambridge, University College London and Imperial College) and led the creation of Ceres a funding partnership of technology in the Agritech sector.
Graeme Cruickshank
Collaboration: 28 October, 3.00pm
Graeme is CPI’s Chief Technology and Innovation Officer. He is responsible for supporting the development of the Technology and Innovation culture within CPI and ensuring CPI’s innovation capability is integrated into the High Value Manufacturing Catapult offer.
He originally joined CPI as the Director of Formulation in 2015, where he led the establishment and management of CPI’s Formulation capability which enables the UK’s ecosystem of academics, SMEs and large companies to de-risk the development and scale-up to manufacture of their complex, high-value, formulated products.
Graeme joined CPI from Procter and Gamble where he spent 20 years in a range of product design and technology innovation roles across a range of FMCGs and in Corporate R&D developing new product categories. Before leaving Procter and Gamble, Graeme was Global Associate Director for Strategic Alliances where he worked in partnership with appliance manufacturers to ensure domestic appliances and detergents innovated together to ensure consumers got ideal end results, with sustainability built-in by reducing water and energy use. In parallel he also led the Global Methods Team bringing more robust and consumer predictive methods for product evaluation which is key in accelerating innovation, allowing faster decision making.
Graeme’s passion for technical capability development through people saw him lead various community of practice groups to accelerate knowledge transfer and spark idea re-application to add business value.
Paul Jenkins
Collaboration: 28 October, 3.00pm
Paul Jenkins has worked for Unilever for 19 years. In that time he has worked on technology for numerous different categories including Deo, Hair, Household Care, Laundry, Oral and Skin.
His current role is Research Director for the Material Science group within the Beauty and Personal Care Science & Technology Group. In this role he leads teams based in the UK, India and China. Over recent years, this team has supported dozens of product launches through the application of either proprietary technologies for new/improved benefits or scientific insights within product claims. His team are named inventors on hundreds of patents that protect Unilever’s product portfolio.
He joined Unilever in March 2000 from the University of South Australia where he was a Research Fellow. There he worked very closely with the R&D capabilities of global resources companies such as Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Xstrata for six years helping them to understand the optimal reagent schemes to maximise recovery of valuable minerals and metals. He also worked with the printing industry to innovate in high performance inks.
Paul received his BSc and PhD from the University of Bristol and is a Chartered Chemist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He has published in excess of 30 papers in peer reviewed journals and is a named inventor on a number of patents that protect in market technology.
Gail Klintworth
Sustainability: 28 October, 4.00pm
Gail serves as a NED, Personal Board Advisor and Trustee with a select group of businesses and NGOs who are well placed to make a significant difference to create ‘A Better Flywheel of low carbon, inclusive Growth’. Formal roles include but are not limited to NED of Tiger Brands (foods); Board Advisor to MAS Holdings (apparel), Chair of the Shell Foundation (energy and mobility), Chair of Globescan Inc. (building trusted leadership) and Chair of Integrity Action (democratizing accountability).
Previously Gail was Executive Director for Old Mutual PLC, leading their global customer, brand and digital portfolio. Under Gail’s leadership, Old Mutual developed their Positive Futures Plan, which promotes inclusive growth and responsible investment. Prior to that, Gail worked for Unilever PLC, most recently as Chief Sustainability Officer and before that lead the Global Savory business, Global Laundry Brands and was CEO of Unilever South Africa.
Gail serves as “Special Advisor: Sustainable Economic Zones and Clusters” for SYSTEMIQ. She has also recently served as the Business and Transformation Director for the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, which made the 12 Trillion$ case for the business benefit associated with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Dr Andy Richards CBE FRSC
Entrepreneurial Mindset: 29 October, 9.40am
Andy is a serial entrepreneur and investor with a sustained track record in founding and scaling up innovative Life-science, Biotechnology and Digital Health companies in the UK. He is currently Chairman of Congenica, Abcodia, Closed Loop Medicine, Arecor and the Babraham Research Campus and is a Director of Ieso Digital Health, Owlstone Medical, and Cancer Research Technology (the commercial arm of CR-UK). He is an advisor to several investment funds including Cambridge Innovation Capital and the UCL Technology Fund, is a founder member of the Cambridge Angels and is a director of the Scale-Up Institute.
Andy is a Cambridge Graduate with a PhD in Chemistry and an early career spanning positions with ICI (now AstraZeneca) and PA Technology. He was a founder and executive director of Chiroscience plc until its merger with Celltech in 1999 and since that time he has founded, invested in and helped to scale more than 30 innovative ventures including companies such as Vectura, Arakis, Cambridge Biotechnology Ltd and Geneservice. Andy is passionate about science and the translation of science to do good for society. The Life-sciences and Healthcare sectors provide the perfect arena for translating science into technology that can help people around the world. He has contributed to the UK Life-sciences Industrial Strategy and received a CBE for services to the life-sciences in 2015.
David Freeman
Innovation: 29 October, 10.10am
David is the Research & Technology Director for Croda’s Energy Technologies business – globally responsible for technical developments across the energy space: His career started in 1998 in ICI’s Paints Division before moving on to Uniqema and Croda. Before his current role he operated in a range of different market areas – including personal care, crop protection, polymer additives and coatings & inks – developing new chemical technology to deliver solutions to unmet market or customer needs.
David received a first degree in chemistry from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Nottingham.
Jason Harcup
Innovation: 29 October, 10.10am
Jason is Unilever’s Global Vice President for Skin Care Research & Development, responsible for the end-to-end R&D delivery from innovation to market across several billion Euros of turnover. He is also Global Vice President for the Prestige Division. He leads a team of several hundred scientists located in laboratories across the world. In 20 years with Unilever, he has been site leader for the Shanghai R&D facility and headed Unilever’s Research organization in China. He currently heads up Unilever’s R&D Campus in the United States.
The teams Jason has led have delivered a string of technologies totaling several hundred million Euros of turnover in global Beauty & Personal Care brands. He has been on the Faculty of Health and Beauty America, a Beauty Disruptor with the CEW network and a co-convenor of the Unilever Asian Dermatological Forum. He is a Fellow of both The Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Prior to Unilever Jason graduated from Cambridge University, has worked as a scientist for the UK Ministry of Defense, and has been an adjunct Professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is author of various publications, holds several patents and has delivered numerous invited talks as an industry leader.
Ellen Norman
Innovation: 29 October, 10.10am
Ellen is a Principal Scientist at Reading Scientific Services Ltd (RSSL) where she leads the technology and science innovation strategy. As a service provider RSSL needs to be agile and adaptive to the market needs ensuring the capabilities match client expectation on quality and cost. She also coordinates major investigative projects covering a wide variety of issues including contamination, adulteration, developing new analytical techniques and troubleshooting product failures.
She originally joined RSSL in 2007, having previously worked for 10 years at Brewing Research International (now part of Campden BRI). Throughout her career she has had a variety of responsibilities including running training courses, research, surveillance and government funded projects. She has a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Birmingham.
Liz Rowsell, Johnson Matthey
Liz is director of the Johnson Matthey Technology Centres, Johnson Matthey’s corporate R&D facilities, with locations in the UK, USA, and South Africa. The site at Sonning Common houses the advanced materials characterisation facilities and works closely with Johnson Matthey businesses, customers and academics. She is an inorganic chemist and joined Johnson Matthey as a research scientist in 1993 working on metal based therapeutics for the treatment of sepsis.
During her career Liz has directed a wide range of research including the development of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts, and new technologies for active packaging, biomass processing, and air quality control.
