Programme Speakers
Dunstan Cooke
Dunstan Cooke is currently Intellectual Property & Licensing Manager of Thiakis Limited, a privately owned biopharmaceutical company founded in 2004 focused on the development of novel therapeutic approaches for the treatment of obesity and other metabolic diseases. Thiakis' technology is based upon the regulation of appetite by gut hormones resulting from the research of co-founder Professor Steve Bloom at Imperial College London. Lead products are oxyntomodulin and Peptide YY 3-36 (PYY3-36), both of which have been shown to reduce appetite and food intake in studies of human volunteers, and, in the case of oxyntomodulin, weight loss.
Previously Dunstan spent three years in technology transfer at Imperial Innovations where his responsibilities included the licensing of intellectual property and the formation of new spin-out ventures resulting from technologies emanating from the Medical and Life Science Faculties, as well as all aspects of assessing new inventions for commercial viability, protecting and prosecuting intellectual property. During this time Dunstan was responsible for the filing and prosecution of the patents licensed to Thiakis, and developing the commercial strategy underpinning the company.
Dunstan was awarded an Enterprise Scholarship to attend London Business School where he studied New Venture Development and International Venture Capital, has a PhD in Biochemical Engineering (University College London) emanating from research with Cobra Biomanufacturing plc which contributed to a patented methodology of plasmid DNA production, and a BSc in Biochemistry and an MPhil in Molecular and Cellular Biology (University of Birmingham).
