Founder and CEO of a company supplying recombinant proteins, specifically Fc receptors, to the biomedical sciences market.

Providing independent consulting services to biopharma clients developing antibody or protein therapeutics. Primarily working with early stage research companies covering topics such as: general antibody design/engineering; humanization; bispecifics; Fc effector function (enhancement or silencing); half-life extension; transient expression (HEK or CHO); and blood-brain barrier delivery.

In my role at Absolute Antibody I developed a novel set of mutations for Fc silencing. We have developed this into a company in its own right and are making the technology available to license for those interested in developing antibodies with no detectable Fc receptor or C1q binding.

Having worked for Absolute Antibody for 8-9 years as Chief Scientific Officer since its inception as a start-up company through a rapid phase of expansion and to a successful acquisition by LS Bio, I have now stepped back from the day-to-day responsibilities and act in an advisory capacity.

I joined Absolute Antibody as the first employee and was responsible for implementing and optimising all the technology platforms that now underpin the services offered by the company: hybridoma sequencing; antibody engineering; transient mammalian expression (HEK and CHO); and protein purification. As a micro company at the time I was also heavily involved in all other aspects of the business: sales, marketing, IT etc. Over an 8 year period I helped transition the company from 1 FTE to >50 with almost exponential growth during this period both in terms of personnel and revenue. The company was acquired by LS Bio at the end of 2020 and I stepped down as CSO in June 2021 to pursue other activities but retain links to Absolute Antibody as a scientific advisor.

Managed a small team responsible for protein production and characterisation across a number of drug discovery projects. As part of this role I coordinated and prioritised the cloning, purification and analysis of antibody and non-antibody therapeutics for both in vitro and in vivo studies at small to medium scale quantities (1-500mg).

I worked on multiple projects covering technology validation, drug discovery and optimisation. In the lab I designed, engineered, produced and characterised antibodies and other therapeutic proteins. In addition I was involved in the planning and implementation of pipeline projects and in mediating cross-departmental and cross-site collaborations.

A 1 year industrial postdoc position on site directed Fc engineering of antibodies for improved functionailty. The role involved cloning, site-directed mutagenesis, mammalian expression and purification, and characterisation of the antibody variants through a variety of biophysical characterisation techniques and cell-based assays.

A CASE award PhD studentship funded by UCB-Celltech. I developed a robust and reliable method for determining the high resolution NMR based structure of scFv-antigen complexes. In particular I determined the first NMR-based structure for a scFv bound to IL-1B. The work involved molecular biology, protein expression and purification from E. coli, and structural characterisation using circular dichroism and NMR. The structure was determined by NMR restraint driven protein-protein docking using HADDOCK.Link to thesis - https://lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/27559