Over the past two decades, I’ve discovered and developed novel medicines across all of AstraZeneca’s major disease areas.
My first degree is in chemical engineering where I became interested in enzymes and molecular evolution. During my PhD I worked on methods to evolve protein variants with novel functionalities in the test tube. I then started my career in biotech before moving into R&D leadership and from there clinical development.
At AstraZeneca, I first headed up the Global Technology Department. The innovative drug modalities that we worked on ultimately contributed to over half of our research portfolio. I then had the opportunity to take one of the resulting drug leads, a dual agonist peptide, into clinical trials and help transform it into a new medicine.
Today, my primary role is to lead a team of drug developers. We are probing human biology with a range of modalities (small molecules, peptides, anti-sense nucleotides, siRNAs, proteins, antibodies) across all our indications (cardiovascular disease, heart failure, kidney diseases, liver and metabolic diseases). We take on projects in pre-clinical and lead them to clinical proof-of-concept and Phase III transition. As Fellow of Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge I supervise graduate students on protein design and directed evolution topics which keeps me close to the science that started off my journey.
What drives me every day is combining science and creativity to design new medicines that make a difference to patients.
2017
2015
2013
CURRENT ROLE
2013-2019
2007-2013
2003-2007
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