Speakers
Fiona Mischel
Hannah Regan
Claire Skentelbery
Alex Smith
Session
Our ability to produce biosolutions at scale is limited by a lack of availability, affordability and accessibility of key scale-up infrastructure. Addressing this market failure is essential if the UK is to see its engineering biology industry grow and scale here. This panel brings together key voices aiming to tackle the infrastructure challenge to explore the question of how the UK can move the dial on infrastructure and enable the deployment of biosolutions at scale.
Dr Hannah Regan is the infrastructure and R&D lead in the Engineering Biology Policy Team in the Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT). She is responsible for ensuring infrastructure and R&D policy for engineering biology support growth of the UK’s sector. Prior to joining the engineering biology team, Hannah worked in central DSIT, and for the Office for Life Sciences. Hannah holds a doctorate in biological engineering from the University of Sheffield.
Claire has worked in the development of scientific networks and associations for over 20 years. Following a degree in agriculture and a PhD in crop science, she worked in scientific communications and as a biotechnology National Contact Point for Framework Programme Five. Her work took her to the fast growing Cambridge (UK) biotechnology cluster in 2000, where she was part of her first business association (now One Nucleus) from where, as part of a Europe-wide founding team, she launched the Council of European BioRegions (CEBR), a network of biotechnology clusters.
Her role as Network Manager for CEBR brought her to Brussels in 2009, where she also became Secretary General of the European Biotechnology Network, a network with the mission to build collaboration for exploitation of science. Through EBN she became involved in the Innovatove Medicines Initiative (IMI) within the ENABLE project, which developed novel Gram negative antibacterial candidates.
In 2016, Claire took on a global role as Director General of the Nanotechnology Industries Association (NIA), representing nanomaterials across sectors, with focus on the emerging regulatory frameworks worldwide and the positioning of nanomaterials in advanced products and processes.
In 2020, she joined EuropaBio as Director General, representing biotechnology across sectors and helping to shape the role that it plays in Europe’s delivery of a sustainable and healthy future.
Alex is Director of Biotechnology at CPI, who support businesses in process development, scale up and commercialisation, specialising in the translation of novel science into industrial reality and helping to bring new ideas and technologies to market faster, and with reduced risk. A chartered chemical engineer and modelling & simulation expert, Alex is experienced in the design, build, commissioning and operation of processes across multiple industries. He joined CPI in 2014 with a remit to establish and develop a strong modelling & simulation capability whilst also helping to further develop the company’s process engineering capabilities. Since 2023 Alex has been in the role of technology centre director at CPI, responsible for leading a team of 80 technical specialists including engineers, scientists and process technicians, to support a range of commercial clients and collaborative partners to scale up their Biotech and Process Chemistry processes from CPI’s Wilton Centre base.
Hendrik Waegeman obtained a master’s degree in Biochemical Engineering at Ghent University (2007) and holds a PhD in Applied Biological Sciences-Chemical Engineering (2011), also obtained at Ghent University. During his doctoral research he metabolically engineered Esherichia coli to improve recombinant protein production. During his post-doctoral research, Hendrik Waegeman was involved in a number of projects that focused on precision fermentation targeting specialty carbohydrates. He is also one of the founders of the biotech company Inbiose NV, founded in 2013, which develops fermentatively produced human milk oligoscaccharides. In 2012, he was guest lecturer at the University of Incheon, South-Korea where he lectured a course on Industrial Biotechnology.
Since 2012, he has a position at the Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant in Ghent, Belgium. Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant is globally one of the largest Pilot- and Demonstration Facility for Industrial Biotechnology. Since 2019 Hendrik is Head of Business Operations and responsible for the operational management of BBEPP.
Hendrik is also board director Biobased Industries Consortium (the private partner in BBI-JU and CBE-JU, Bio.be (the cluster of Belgian biotech companies), Smart Delta Resources (large energy and resource-intensive companies in the Flemish-Dutch Schelde-Delta region) and the European Biosolutions Coalition (representing VBO-FEB, the Organization for Belgian Enterprises).
Hendrik is a strong believer in the bioeconomy and industrial biotechnology.