[1] Prof. Patsy Stark
[2] Prof. Peter Selby
[3] Dr. Alison Campbell OBE
[4] Sir Graeme Catto
[5] Dr. Ludovic Vallier
[6] Dr. Roger Barker
[7] Prof. Alexander Seifalian

Prof. Patsy Stark

Patsy Stark recently retired as the Professor of Clinical Education at the University of Leeds. Until January 2011, she was Professor of Medical Education at the University of Sheffield, where she led on the implementation of the new medical curriculum and was awarded the University’s Senate Fellowship for sustained excellence in teaching and learning. She has been involved in a range of overseas activities, including being a consultant for the World Health Organisation (Eastern Mediterranean Region) and Red Cross and a number of medical schools in Saudi Arabia and Colombia.

Professor Stark is a Director of Strategic Development for the Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME) and an external advisor at the Royal College of Surgeons for the MJDF dental examinations.

Prof. Peter Selby

Peter Selby is a consultant physician at St James’s University Hospital and has had a distinguished career in cancer research and cancer care. In 2000 Professor Selby was appointed as Director of the National Cancer Research Network, which was charged with providing a world class clinical infrastructure, and was successful in increasing the clinical trials activity in the UK in cancer four-fold and providing a model which substantially influenced developments for other aspects of health care in the UK and in many other countries across the world. He was appointed Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998, and awarded a CBE in 2001 for services to cancer research and cancer care. In 2005 he became Joint Director of the UK Clinical Research Network, which is now responsible for overseeing the development of clinical trials within the NHS across all of healthcare. In 2007 Peter became President of the Association of Cancer Physicians and also won the Pfizer Excellence in Oncology Lifetime Achievement award. Peter is also Director of the CRUK Clinical Centre and Clinical Director of LIMM.

Dr. Alison Campbell OBE

Alison Campbell’s career has largely been at the academic industry interface, both in industry and the public sector. As an independent consultant, Alison specializes in open innovation and commercialization. Her areas of expertise include strategic planning; project management; contract negotiation; business development; and technology transfer. She also delivers associated training and development, nationally and internationally.

Most recently, as Managing Director for King’s College London Business Ltd. she ran research commercialization and enterprise across the range of academic disciplines at the university. Her remit has included business development and collaboration, IP management, consultancy, out-licensing, start-up company creation, clinical trials, executive education, research management, and capturing the impact of research and innovation. Previously Alison worked for the UK Medical Research Council, with responsibility for commercialization of the intra-mural research programme.

Sir Graeme Catto

Graeme Catto is President of the College of Medicine, Chairman of the Higher Education Better Regulation Group and Dignity in Dying. A former President of the General Medical Council, he was Vice-Principal at King’s College London, Dean of the Guy’s, King’s College and St. Thomas’ Hospitals’ Medical & Dental School and Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of London. For a decade he was Chairman of the Board of Governors at Robert Gordon’s College, Aberdeen.

After graduating in Medicine from the University of Aberdeen, he obtained a Harkness Fellowship from the Commonwealth Fund of New York to study at Harvard University. He was a physician with an interest in renal medicine and has published widely on different aspects of nephrology and immunology. Formerly Chief Scientist at the Scottish Executive Health Department, Dean and Vice Principal at the University of Aberdeen, Governor of the Science Technology Park in Qatar and Chairman of the Scottish Stem Cell Network, he is currently President of the Association for the Study of Medical Education and Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Aberdeen.

Dr. Ludovic Vallier

Ludovic Vallier is an MRC senior-non clinical fellow affiliated to the Department of Surgery Cambridge University, principal investigator in the Anne McLaren laboratory for Regenerative Medicine and director of the Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre hIPSCs core facility. He has developed a strong expertise on human embryonic stem cells and human induced pluripotent stem cells by discovering key mechanisms controlling their differentiation and pluripotency. His laboratory studies the basic mechanisms controlling differentiation of pluripotent cells into endoderm progenitors from which the pancreas, lung, gut and liver originate. His overall objective is not only to acquire the knowledge necessary to control differentiation of pluripotent stem cells into specific endodermal cells but also to generate cell types for cell based therapy against diabetes and inherited metabolic disorders of the liver.

Dr. Roger Barker

Roger A. Barker is the Professor of Clinical Neuroscience and Honorary Consultant in Neurology at the University of Cambridge and at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He trained at Oxford and London and has been in his current position for over ten years having completed an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship just prior to this. His main interests are in the neurodegenerative disorders of the nervous system; in particular Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease. He combines basic research looking at cell therapies to treat these conditions with clinically based work on defining the natural history and heterogeneity of both Huntington’s disease and Parkinson’s disease and is the co-ordinator of the FP7 TRANSEURO project looking at fetal cell grafting in patients with early PD.

Prof. Alexander Seifalian

Alexander Seifalian is the Professor of Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine at UCL, London. His current projects have led to the development of cardiovascular implants using nanomaterials and stem cell technology, and the development of organs using tissue engineering and nanoparticles for detection and treatment of cancer.

He was awarded the top prize in the field for development of nanomaterials and technologies for cardiovascular implants in 2007 by Medical Future Innovation, and in 2009 received a Business Innovation Award from UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) in the Life Sciences and Healthcare category. More recently (2011), he developed a lacrimal drainage conduit, vascular bypass graft, and trachea made from nanocomposite polymers and stem cells and delivered them from the laboratory directly to patients. In addition, he is also taking a further three products to clinical trials within the next three years, which include a coronary artery bypass graft in 2012, a transcatheter heart valve in 2013 (both funded by the Wellcome Trust), and a nerve conduit for nerve regeneration funded by the Technology Strategy Board.