Speaker details
Short biographical details for speakers and participants are listed below in alphabetical order.----------------------------------
Dr Maria J Arranz studied biology in the University of the Balearic Islands (Spain) and conducted a PhD in genetics at the Medical Research Council (Toxicology Unit, London, UK). Her main interest is the investigation of the hereditary causes of human disorders and the reasons behind treatment failure. Since joining the Institute of Psychiatry-King’s College London in 1993, MJ Arranz has worked on psychiatric genomics and pharmacogenomics, focusing in particular on psychotropic medications. Her team has published several world-leading papers in the field, and produced the first test for the prediction of response to antipsychotics using genetic information. Her current research includes transcriptomic and proteomic investigations to discern the mechanism of action of antipsychotic medications. View profile page >>
Dr. Michael Arribas-Ayllon is a Research Fellow working on the history of biological psychiatry and the genetics of psychiatric disorders at the Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (Cesagen). In previous projects, he has worked on public perceptions of environmental risk, the ethics of genetic testing of children, family perceptions of genetic risk and the commercialization of direct-to-consumer genetic testing for common complex disorders. Michael has written a book based on this work, due to be published by Routledge in April 2011: "Genetic Testing: Accounts of Autonomy, Responsibility and Blame". View profile page >>
Professor Simon Bright was, until retiring at the beginning of 2010, the Director of Warwick HRI, a department of the University of Warwick specialising in plant and crop science and was also a member of the University Council. He is currently the executive of the UK National Horticulture Forum and chairs the Advisory Board for Egenis at the University of Exeter. Prof Bright previously spent 18 years in industrial research, most recently as Head of Technology Interaction at Syngenta - the world's largest agribusiness company, where he led research on the application of genomics and biotechnology to crop plants. He was a member of the Council of the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and served on the editorial board of the journal: "Current Opinion in Plant Science". He has particular interest in the management of technology transfer from research through to practical use.
Koray Caliskan is assistant professor of politics at Bogazici University in Istanbul. Receiving a Ph.D. with distinction from New York University, his dissertation was given the best dissertation award in 2005 by Middle East Studied Association of North America. Based on his dissertation research, he wrote Market Threads, a monograph on how global markets work that came out in 2010 from Princeton University Press. He wrote two articles with Michel Callon for Economy and Society, mapping the state of market theory and research. He is a columnist in Turkish daily Radikal and wrote and directed a short film on working class women in Istanbul that was screened in Short Film Corner of Cannes Film Festival in 2010. Currently, he is carrying out research on Hydroelectric Power Dams and Organized Industrial Zones in Turkey and planning to shoot a feature film on the disappearance of global peasantry. View profile page >>
Dr Jane Calvert is an RCUK Academic Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, based in the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Innogen Centre. Jane’s broad area of research is the sociology of the life sciences. She is currently studying the emergence and development of both systems biology and synthetic biology. She is particularly interested in the role of social scientists in emerging technoscientific fields, the differences between biology and engineering, intellectual property and open source, and design and aesthetics in synthetic biology. View profile page >>
Dr William Cannell is Advisor in the European Commission Directorate General for Research. He has a degree in natural sciences and a PhD in applied psychology. From 1984 to 1990 he worked at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, ultimately as Deputy Director and Head of Branch in the Chief Scientist's department. Since joining the Commission in 1990 he has been responsible for numerous aspects of science policy, his main work in recent years being to establish the EU funding programmes for frontier research. He set up and managed the New and Emerging Science and Technology (NEST) programme under the Community’s 6th framework programme and managed the project to establish the European Research Council (ERC) under the 7th framework programme. He was Head of Unit for Strategy and relations with the Scientific Council until 2010 when the ERC Executive Agency became fully autonomous from the Commission.
Professor David Castle is Chair of Innovation in the Life Sciences at the ESRC Innogen Centre. Professors Castle’s interests include innovation in the life sciences and social aspects of biotechnology. His research focuses on the interaction between science and society, including democratic engagement, regulation and governance, and intellectual property and knowledge management. He has published dozens of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and several books on the social dimensions of science, technology and innovation. Castle has held several major research awards, and has considerable experience leading strategic research initiatives and research project management. In addition, he has consulted widely to government and industry on issues such as the impact of national technology transfer policies and programs, intellectual property strategies for the health research and development, and the role of non-scientific considerations in the regulation of science and technology. View profile page >>
Professor Joanna Chataway Co-Director of the ESRC Innogen Centre, and a professor at the Open University, Joanna is also Director of Innovation and Technology Policy at RAND Europe and member of the Nuffield Bioethics Council Working Party on Biofuels. Her research and consultancy experience includes work on science and technology capacity building; North-South Public Private Partnerships (PPPs); innovation and development. Carrying out several studies looking at these issues in relation to agricultural and health related biotechnology and also researching risk regulation, perception and management of risk of biotechnology. Joanna has worked in Central America, India, Southern Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Russia. View profile page >>
Professor Nick Craddock is Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychological Medicine and Neurology at Cardiff University. Nick studied mathematical sciences in Cambridge followed by medicine in Birmingham. He trained in psychiatry in Birmingham and in genetics in Cardiff and St Louis. His research is focussed on improving understanding, diagnosis and management of bipolar and psychotic illness. He has published over 280 research articles, is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Chair of the Academic Faculty of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and an editorials editor for the British Journal of Psychiatry. Nick is Scientific Advisor to the Manic Depression Fellowship – The Bipolar Organization, has a strong interest in public education and advises BBC Eastenders on their bipolar disorder storyline. He is head of the Cardiff University Psychiatry Service where he specializes in diagnosis and management of bipolar disorder. View profile page >>
Professor John Dupré is a philosopher of science whose work has focused especially on issues in biology. Since 2002 he has been Director of the ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society (Egenis) and he is Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Exeter. He has formerly held posts at Oxford, Stanford, and Birkbeck College, London. He is the President-Elect of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science and a member of the Council of the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology. Prof Dupré has worked on a wide variety of biological issues of interest to philosophy, including the nature of species, organisms, and genes, the implications of evolutionary theory, and lately on genomics and various related areas of molecular biology (epigenetics, microbiology, systems biology and synthetic biology.) View profile page >>
Dr Emma Frow joined the ESRC Genomics Policy & Research Forum as a Research fellow in May 2006. With an academic background in natural science, Emma runs an interdisciplinary work programme on Plant Genomics and the Bioeconomy, which has to date comprised a series of workshops, expert meetings, and public events, and has produced a number of publications. She also coordinates a multidisciplinary Research Council-funded Network in Synthetic Biology (2008-2011). Drawing on her involvement with this network, Emma is currently working on a project to explore the dynamics of standards development in synthetic biology. View profile page >>
Iain Gillespie is Head of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Science and Technology Policy Division. The Division works with the 30 OECD member countries as well as some 70 non-members to develop international consensus on a wide range of scientific and technological policy issues including, governance of international cooperation on science, technology and innovation to meet global challenges, social innovation, new forms of innovation and the wide range of other OECD work on innovation policy and concomitant country studies. The Division also works on research infrastructure and funding and human resources for science and technology, and incorporates OECD's programme on biotechnology policy as well as work on other emerging and converging technologies such as synthetic biology and nanotechnology. Iain was previously Head of the OECD's Biotechnology Division, from its creation in 2005 to the formation of the current Science and Technology Policy Division in early 2009.
Dr Rebecca Hanlin is Lecturer in Development Policy and Practice at the Open University and Director of Health Innovation at the ESRC Innogen Centre. She has worked extensively in Africa in the public and in the private sector. Her research is on innovation and development, with a specific focus on health innovation and its implications for the provision of equitable healthcare. View profile page >>
Professor Adam Hedgecoe is the Leader of Biomedicine, Identity and Behaviour Theme at Cesagen and is based at Cardiff University. He is developing a research programme in cardiac genetics, as well as a project looking at the clinical pharmacogenetics of asthma, and research on the growing personal genomics industry. Adam is a Sociologist of science and technology, with a Ph.D. from the Department of Science and Technology Studies, at University College London. He originally trained as a bioethicist and has worked for the technology assessment units of both the European and British Parliaments. He has also carried out research on a European Union funded project into the ethics of genetic screening, as well as consultancy for a number of organisations including the OECD. He has a long standing interest in personalised medicine with his book The Politics of Personalised Medicine – Pharmacogenetics in the Clinic published by Cambridge University Press in 2004. View profile page >>
Professor Steve Hughes is a Co-Director of Egenis. He has 20 years experience as a research and innovation manager in the food, agriculture (plant breeding) and biotechnology industries in Italy and the UK and is cited as inventor on five biotechnology-related patents. Steve's current research focuses on the impact of advanced genomics-based tools for agronomy, plant breeding and food production on local agricultural practices. He has served on the BBSRC Agricultural Systems Directorate, the Advisory Committee on Genetic Manipulation, (HSE), the British Society of Plant Breeders Biotechnology Working Group, and various ad hoc advisory panels for EU Framework Programmes and FAO/IAEA joint programmes. View profile page >>
Dr. Pierre Meulien was appointed President and CEO of Genome Canada in October 2010. Prior to this appointment, he served as Chief Scientific Officer for Genome British Columbia from 2007 to 2010. From 2002 to 2007, Dr. Meulien served as the founding CEO of the Dublin Molecular Medicine Centre (now Molecular Medicine Ireland) which linked the three medical schools and six teaching hospitals in Dublin to build a critical mass in molecular medicine and translational research. The Centre managed the Euro 45 Million “Program for Human Genomics” financed by the Irish government and was responsible for coordinating the successful application for the first Wellcome Trust funded Clinical Research Centre to be set up in Ireland. For over 20 years, Dr. Meulien has managed expert research teams with a number of organizations, including Aventis Pasteur in Toronto (Senior Vice President of R&D), and in Lyon, France (Director of Research). He also spent seven years with the French biotechnology company Transgene in Strasbourg, France as a research scientist and part of the management team. Dr. Meulien’s academic credentials include a PhD from the University of Edinburgh and a post-doctoral appointment at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.
Alfred Nordmann became Professor of Philosophy and History of Science at Darmstadt Technical University after receiving his Ph.D. in Hamburg (1986) and serving on the faculty of the Philosophy Department at the University of South Carolina (1988-2002). His current focus is on the development of a comprehensive philosophy of technoscience that reflects recent changes in the culture of science and the changing relationship of science, technology, nature and society. Since 2000 Nordmann has been studying philosophical and societal dimensions of nanoscience and converging technologies. As rapporteur for a European expert group he produced the 2004 report Converging Technologies for European Knowledge Societes (CTEKS). With Davis Baird and Joachim Schummer he edited Discovering the Nanoscale (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2004), with Joachim Schummer and Astrid Schwarz Nanotechnologien im Kontext (Berlin: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 2006), with Stefan Gammel and Andreas Lösch Jenseits von Regulierung: Zum politischen Umgang mit der Nanotechnologie [Beyond Regulation: On the Political Governance of Nanotechnology] (Berlin: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 2009), and most recently with Martin Carrier Science in the Context of Application (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010). Since August 2008 he is Visiting Centenary Professor at the University of South Carolina. View profile page >>
Dr Maureen O'Malley is a Senior Research Fellow at Egenis based at the University of Exeter. Maureen’s current research focuses on philosophical and historical issues in microbiology, with a particular interest in metagenomics and microbial systems/synthetic biology. These projects continue and extend earlier work on evolutionary microbiology and microbial genomics, carried out while part of the Doolittle lab at Dalhousie University (Halifax, Nova Scotia). Other interests include the use of evolutionary theory in the social sciences (the topic of her PhD, started at the University of Edinburgh and completed at Sussex), as well as the philosophy, history and sociology of biology in general. View profile page >>
Profressor Béatrice Séguin is Program Leader at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health. Dr. Séguin is also an Assistant Professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto. At the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre Dr Séguin focuses her work on global health research. She has led a Canada-wide study on how scientific diasporas can contribute to capacity building in health biotechnology innovation in their home countries in the developing world. She has also led a large-scale project that examined the implications of human genomic variation studies (including pharmacogenomics) for global health. View profile page >>
Dr Steve Sturdy is Deputy Director of the ESRC Genomics Policy & Research Forum at the University of Edinburgh. Steve joined the staff of the University of Edinburgh in 1994 as a lecturer in the Science Studies Unit and his research combines perspectives from the history and sociology of medicine and the sociology of scientific knowledge, and focuses on the evolving relationship between medical science, medical practice and medical policy in Britain since the mid-19th century. View profile page >>
Professor Joyce Tait (CBE, FRSE, D. Univ. (Open), PhD, BSc) is Scientific Advisor of the ESRC Innogen Centre, and a professor at the University of Edinburgh. She has an interdisciplinary background in natural and social sciences covering: technology development strategies in the agro-chemical, pharmaceutical and life science industries; translational medicine; governance, risk assessment and regulation; policy analysis; stakeholder attitudes and influences; science and risk communication. Current and recent appointments include: Member of the Board of Directors, Scottish Stem Cell Network Ltd; Member of the Governing Council of the Roslin Institute; Member of the Scottish Science Advisory Council; Member of the Scientific and Technical Council of the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC), Geneva. She is also chairing the Working Party of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics on ‘New Approaches to Biofuels’ and was a member of the committee advising the UK Food Standards Agency on its public dialogue on GM foods. View profile page >>
Dr. Richard Twine has worked at Cesagen in Lancaster since 2004. He attained a BA Joint Honours Sociology and Psychology (Stirling) 1995, MA Sociology (Essex) 1996 and PhD Sociology (Manchester Met.) 2002. In addition to his research role in Cesagen he is Postgraduate Director for Cesagen Lancaster and teaches on genomics and society, gender studies and the body, and the on the relationship between animals, science and society. His research interests intersect the fields of environment, gender and human/animal relations. He co-founded and is now the Associate Editor of the journal Genomics, Society and Policy. He is also the book reviews editor for the Journal for Critical Animal Studies. His book, Animals as Biotechnology: Ethics, Sustainability and Critical Animal Studies was published by Earthscan in August 2010. View profile page >>
Robert Wells has more than twenty years experience in public policy, government relations, and international corporate development. His diverse career has given him expertise in business and policy issues associated with life sciences, health care, financial services and global markets. Robert joined the OECD in September 2009 to Head the Biotechnology Unit in the Science and Technology Policy Division. Prior to joining the OECD, Robert co-founded, HealthFutures, LLC, a Washington, DC and Boston-based consulting firm specializing in public policy issues impacting the emerging field of personalized, predictive and preventive medicine. HealthFutures clients included private sector companies, private investment firms, professional associations and advocacy groups.
Professor Robin Williams is Co-Director of the ESRC Innogen Centre and Director of the Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation (ISSTI), University of Edinburgh. He has a strong interdisciplinary research focus on: the interplay between social and technical factors in shaping technological artefacts and practices and their societal outcomes; the development and implementation of information and communication technologies and 'cleaner' technologies. View profile page >>
Professor Steve Yearley is Director of the ESRC Genomics Policy & Research Forum at the University of Edinburgh. He joined Edinburgh in 2005 as the Professor of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge. He is primarily interested in social studies of science and in environmental sociology. Steve is particularly concerned with areas where these specialisms overlap: for example in environmental controversies with a pronounced scientific element (such as with recent disputes over the safety or otherwise of GMOs and the emerging concerns around synthetic biology) or, for example, in attempts to foster public engagement in technical decision-making in environmental areas (for instance, through his work on citizen engagement in urban air-quality issues). View profile page >>
