Management Team
Dr. Farid Khan
Chairman
Dr. Farid Khan is an award-winning scientist and innovator who has worked in drug discovery at GlaxoSmithkline and obtained a PhD from Cambridge University. Dr. Khan has developed drugs for rare diseases biosensers and imaging agents for cancer diagnosis and treatment. He has secured £multi-million funds from private and public sources, formed key interdisciplinary collaborations with industry, academic institutions and charities including stakeholders in the UK’s healthcare agenda. A visionary leader and respected scientist, with deep knowledge in the engineering & Life Sciences sector gained through business and strong links with the bio-pharmaceutical, agri-technology and clean-technology industry, both internationally and in the UK. Dr. Khan holds at research associate position at The University of Cambridge and The University of Manchester. He has been independently acknowledged as a leader in the UK’s healthcare business community and has a proven track record of innovation.
Scientific Advisory Board
Professor Sir Alan Fersht
University of Cambridge
Alan Fersht is a pioneer of protein engineering, which he developed as a primary method for analysis of the structure, activity and folding of proteins. He has developed methods for the high resolution of protein folding in the sub-millisecond time-scale and has pioneered the method of Phi value analysis for studying the folding transition states of proteins
His interests also include protein misfolding, disease and cancer. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1983, from whom he was awarded the Gabor Medal in 1991 for molecular biology, the Davy Medal in 1998 for chemistry and the Royal Medal in 2008.
He is a Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences, a Foreign Member of the American Philosophical Society, an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
In 2003 he was knighted for his pioneering work on protein folding. In addition to his significant academic achievements, Sir Alan also has experience with Biotech startups, most notably in the spin-off of the highly successful Cambridge Antibody Technologies, acquired by AstraZeneca in 2007 for £700m.
Dr. Sophie Jackson
University of Cambridge
Sophie Jackson is a Reader in Biophysical Chemistry at Cambridge University. She completed a B.A. in Chemistry at Oxford University before starting a PhD at Imperial College, University of London which she completed in Cambridge.
She was awarded William Stone Research Fellowship (Peterhouse, Cambridge), and a Human Frontiers Science Program Organisation Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Chemistry Department at Harvard University.
She returned to Cambridge in 1995 as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. Her research focuses on different aspects of protein folding and assembly processes, and her current interests include understanding how large complex protein structures form.
Dr. Gareth DeBoos
Sorso Ltd.
Gareth DeBoos has over 25 years experience spanning process chemistry & biotransformations, operations and commercial management. He has had leadership roles in pharmaceutical, agrochemical & fine chemical businesses such as Wellcome/GSK, ICI/Zeneca and Avecia and has published many technical & business process papers.
Between 2003 and 2007, he was European sales manager for Codexis Ltd, the current world leader in industrial protein evolution. In 2009, he founded Sorso Ltd, a consultancy offering technical and commercial services to the bioprocessing industry.
Professor Roy Goodacre
The University of Manchester
Roy Goodacre was educated at The University of Bristol where he was awarded his BSc in Microbiology and his PhD in analytical methods applied to microbiological problems. Thereafter, he worked for three years as a PDRA in University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK and then four years as a Wellcome Trust Fellow where he investigated chemometrics and artificial neural networks for the analysis of spectroscopic data.
Following this he was appointed a Lecturer in Microbiology. He moved in Feb 2003 to take up the position of Reader in Analytical Science in the School of Chemistry, The University of Manchester.
His current position since Aug 2005 is as Professor of Biological Chemistry and he specializes in metabolomics, Systems Biology, proteomics, Raman, SERS, FT-IR and Mass Spectrometry
