Margaret Clotworthy PhD

Getting any product to which people will be exposed to the market is costly, lengthy & often fraught with unexpected complications. There are labs developing ingenious ways of predicting safety & efficacy & exploring biology using tools which were recently unheard of. However, product developers may be unaware of these exciting technologies & find it tough to locate the expertise they need. We put researchers in touch with the specialists needed at every stage of the process.

I coordinate a network of biobankers, pathologists, academic researchers, biotech & pharma companies, patients & surgeons interested in overcoming the obstacles to ethical human tissue-based research, for the better understanding of disease & drug development.

I was Science Director at patient safety charity Safer Medicines Trust, where I organised two conferences; one on new technologies in drug safety testing, held at the Royal Society (2009): www.drugtestingconference.com and one on Human Tissue Research, held at the House of Lords and hosted by Professor Lord McColl of Dulwich (2010).

STRATUM is a new public-private initiative to improve the biobanking landscape in the UK. I was part of the team which successfully applied for the Technology Strategy Board grant which is co-funding the project, and will be Project Manager for the Biobanking Policy work package. Further info on the project may be found at the article above.

cell movement, at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology