Dr Himanshu Kataria

CEO & Managing Director

Himanshu is an experienced NHS Academic Clinician with emergency medicine background (>10 years clinical experience). Himanshu has substantial experience in setup and delivery of clinical research trials, as a specialty lead within Clinical Research Network for the whole of North West Coast of England delivering research in >23 NHS Partner organisations. Himanshu is an MBBS, MBBS, MRCSed (A&E), MRCEM, FRCEM, ALS Instructor. With a number of years in both clinical and research experience, Himanshu has held various consultancy posts in notable hospitals/medical facilities such as Whiston Hospital in Merseyside. He also held the Special Group Lead position within the Clinical Research Network – North West Coast: Research Delivery arm of the NIHR (National Institute of Health Research). In addition to his qualifications as a Medical Doctor, Himanshu has held a number of entrepreneurial roles over the past few years in bio-medical companies such as Indu Stem Cell Technology Plc, and Transgenex Inc in the USA. Dr Kataria is familiar with financial management of the business owing to his experience in Clinical Finance Limited which advised for fundraising for Indu Stem Cell Technology PLC. He continues to serve as a director for Indu Stem Cell Technology PLC.

Mrs Zalak Kataria

CFO & Director

Zalak holds a Bachelors in Business Administration from S.P. University in India. Zalakben has a number of years’ experience as a project manager in Clinical Finance Ltd. Prior to her work with Clinical Finance Ltd Zalakben was based in India.

Ms. Meghan Harrison

Laboratory scientist

Meghan gained a BSc in Biomedical Science from Keele University and went on to complete her MSc in Cell and Tissue Engineering at a European Centre of Excellence for Tissue engineering, at Keele University’s local hospital campus: the Guy Hilton Research Centre. Her research specialised in determining the response of human mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow to competing for differentiation cues in vitro, making her cell culture and engineering skills of the highest level.

Professor Simon Jackson

Consultant Advisor & Immunologist

Professor Simon Jackson is lead for Biomedical Research at the Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry. Simon gained his BSc and PhD at Cardiff University, and after a period as a visiting researcher at Dartmouth Medical School, USA, developed his research career first at the Medical School, Cardiff University and then as a research leader at the University of the West of England, Bristol. He has over 200 publications in the area of infection and immunity (H-index 31 (Web of Science)and has particular expertise in the cell and molecular responses to pathogenic molecules such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS, endotoxin). His research activities are centred on immunological and inflammatory responses to infection and the key role played by bacterial molecules such as LPS and for the development and application of relevant cell models to study such responses. Current work is utilising gene knockdown and proteomic approaches to identify novel roles for lipid modifying enzymes in inflammatory disease including sepsis to aid new therapeutic and diagnostic approaches. Inflammatory responses can be amplified by interactions of these signalling pathways with environmental/exogenous molecules and his group have established new in vitro cell models to explore these effects particularly using novel lung cell models. Simon has also developed a company (MolEndoTech Ltd) to exploit developments from the endotoxin research. He is the UK editor for Infection and Immunity and was recently invited to deliver a TEDx talk on his cell culture developments and cell-cell interactions. His research is supported by grants from the UK Research Councils, industry, charities and Government bodies.

Dr Olivier Pardo

Consultant Adviser

Olivier E. Pardo graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy Paris-V, France where he was awarded a Doctorate in Industrial Pharmacy (1997).

Dr Violaine See

Consultant Adviser

Dr Violaine Sée is a senior lecturer in the department of Biochemistry at the University of Liverpool. She is also co-director of the Centre for Cell Imaging a shared research facility providing expertise and instrumentation for imaging projects. She completed her doctorate in molecular and cellular pharmacology in 2001, at the University of Strasbourg (France). She moved to the University of Liverpool in 2002 as a post-doctoral research associate. She has obtained a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship in 2005, which has contributed to her academic establishment. She is now leading a research group working on intracellular signals, their dynamic regulation and their impact on the fine tuning of gene transcription and cell fate. Dr Sée’s research focuses on hypoxia signaling especially on the important role of hypoxia inducible factor timing to control cell fate and drug resistance. She works across scales from single molecule to cells, multicellular spheroids and small organisms (chick embryo), using advanced imaging technologies to monitor cellular events in real-time.

Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed

Consultant Adviser

Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed is currently David Weatherall Chair in Medicine at the University of Liverpool and a Consultant Physician at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. He is also the Associate Executive Pro Vice Chancellor for Clinical Research and Head of Department of Molecular and Clinical Pharmacology. He also holds the only NHS Chair of Pharmacogenetics in the UK, and is Director of the M.R.C. Centre for Drug Safety Sciences, and Director of the Wolfson Centre for Personalised Medicine. He is also an inaugural NIHR Senior Investigator, and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in the UK. He has authored over 350 peer-reviewed publications. Professor Pirmohamed’s research focuses on individual variability in drug response (including anti-cancer drugs), both safety and efficacy, with a view to evaluating the mechanisms, and identifying strategies to personalise healthcare in order to optimise drug efficacy and minimise toxicity. The work spans the whole spectrum from discovery to implementation with laboratory based studies being linked translationally to patient studies, with the aim being to develop the evidence base that can move discoveries from the lab to the clinic, and from clinic to application. Professor Pirmohamed has received a number of honours including most recently, the William Withering Medal from the Royal College of Physicians.

Mr. Rupert Lewis

Consultant Advisor

With an extensive career in M&A, Rupert has been supporting life science businesses with their fund raising and commercial operations for a number of years. More recently Rupert has established Oyster Venture Partners, an organisation that is focussed on enabling life science companies to achieve their mission through the provision of corporate finance, CFO advisory, and networking services.