Programme Speakers
Karen Smith
UCL was a founding laboratory of the discipline of Biochemical Engineering and established the first UK Department - it is the largest international centre. The department's research activity embraces five major themes; the achievement of speed from discovery to outcome, the harnessing of genomics, addressing the new generation of complex materials, making the outcome affordable and achieving sustainability.
It is an EPSRC Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (IMRC) for Bioprocessing in collaboration with numerous leading companies and holds an EPSRC funded collaborative research programme on biocatalysis between the departments of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. This Bioconversion-Chemistry-Engineering Interface Programme (BiCE) is advised by a consortium of 11 companies providing further exceptionally valuable industrial input.
Through an EPSRC Engineering Doctorate Centre programme the department is involved in the enhanced doctoral training of future industry leaders with a group of more than 30 companies and, together with an EPSRC Masters Degree programme for Bioprocess Innovation and undergraduate degrees, UCL represents the largest source of trained new staff for the bioindustry. Through special activities, some in collaboration with the London Business School, training is provided for innovative leaders. For example, the department uses its £20 million bioprocessing facility and a new £5 million Micro Biochemical Engineering Centre to provide modular courses for companies which have attracted participants from over 120 companies globally. A new suite for Regenerative Medicines is currently under construction. Karen's role as Director of Bioprocess Leadership is to enhance and grow this wide range of activities and engagement.
Prior to joining UCL Karen was the Acting Head/Deputy Head of the Partnership Group, Research Services Division, University of Cambridge and the Business Director of the Cambridge Computational Biology Institute (CCBI). She managed a team of Partnership Development Managers in the creation, planning, development and facilitation of long-term and sustainable relationships between the University and external organizations including corporates, research councils, major charities and government departments. Karen's individual focus was in the biomedical sciences and she developed several high value relationships with companies such as GSK, Kodak, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson and Microsoft. In addition to these activities, she was the Manager of the Next-Generation Drug Discovery Knowledge Integration Community (KIC) funded by the Cambridge-MIT Institute. The KICs aims were to create innovative methods to catalyse development of safer and more effective new drugs and to reduce the current reliance on animal experiments to predict effects on humans.
Karen holds an Honours degree, two Masters degrees and a PhD (Emmanuel College, Cambridge) and is the author of numerous scientific papers and thought leadership articles. Her commercial career has been with National Westminster Bank, Ernst & Young and IMS Global Consulting where she worked at a strategic level with a range of pharmas, biotechs and regional/government agencies and departments.
