The Quadram Institute is a unique partnership bringing together four partners; the University of East Anglia, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Quadram Institute Bioscience and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

The Quadram Institute partnership was created to help harness world-class food, health and microbiome science, all housed in the state-of-the-art Quadram Institute which opened in 2018/19.

Our vision is to understand how food and microbes interact to promote health and prevent disease. By bringing together clinicians and researchers working in bioscience and genomics, through food and into human health, the Quadram creates a pipeline of research with the potential to create solutions with verified benefits for human health.

Quadram Institute Bioscience Leadership

Director of the Quadram Institute and Quadram Institute Bioscience

The Director Professor Ian Charles smiling, with a backdrop of sparkling labs behind.

Professor  Ian Charles OBE is the Director of the Quadram Institute and Director and Chief Executive Officer of Quadram Institute Bioscience. He leads the programme to develop the Quadram Institute.

Prof. Charles returned to the UK in 2015 to take up his position from Australia, where he was Director of the ithree institute, University of Technology, Sydney. He has over 30 years’ experience in academic and commercial research. His academic career has included being a founding member of The Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research at University College London, one of the UK’s first institutes of translational medicine.

Ian has also worked in the pharmaceutical industry at Glaxo Wellcome, and has been founder and CSO of biotech companies in the area of infectious disease, including Arrow Therapeutics, sold to AstraZeneca, and Auspherix a venture capital backed company founded in 2013. His current research interests include infectious diseases as well as the microbiome and its impact on health and wellbeing.


QIB Board of Trustees

The membership of the Board of Trustees for Quadram Institute Bioscience is drawn from the academic community, the food industry and public representatives and covers a range of skills including business and risk, science and technology and social and ethical responsibility.

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Celia Caulcott (Chair)

Dr Celia Caulcott is a highly knowledgeable research and innovation leader, with extensive experience working in and with the biopharmaceuticals industry, agri-food sector and bioindustry more widely.  She is currently the chair of the Board of Trustees of  Quadram Institute Bioscience at Norwich, Vice Chair of the Governing Council of the John Innes Centre and a trustee of the East Malling Trust, where she chairs the Science and Impact Committee.  She is also actively engaged in land management and farming in the Lake District.

Previously Dr Caulcott was Vice-Provost (Enterprise) UCL (University College London) where she was responsible for developing and leading the UCL strategies for innovation and enterprise across all of UCL. This strategy focused on helping the outstanding staff and students of the university to make a difference to society and the world, in particular through embedding a culture of innovation and enterprise across the university. As part of her UCL role she was a non-executive director on UCLB, the highly successful commercialisation business of UCL.

Before this, Celia was the Executive Director, Innovation and Skills at BBSRC, where she was responsible for developing and delivering BBSRC strategy for innovation, and for building its links with the food and agriculture sectors, amongst others. She worked in and with the biopharmaceuticals industry (including Celltech Ltd, ICI Pharmaceuticals, the Wellcome Foundation and various UK early stage biotechs) and the Wellcome Trust on the Human Genome Project.

Celia has a first-class honours degree in Microbiology from Newcastle University and a PhD in pharmaceutical microbiology from Aston University.

Other Trustees

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Eddie Blair

Dr Eddie Blair is currently Chair of Virokine Therapeutics, was CEO at GeneFirst Ltd and Integrated Magnetic Systems Ltd, and has held Executive and Non-Executive Directorships at Public Limited Companies.

He also remains Managing Director of Integrated Medicines Ltd (IML), a company co-founded in 2003 to enable personalised medicine by combining diagnostic-type testing with new and existing medicines, in part using intellectual capital from GSK.

Eddie is a visiting scholar to the Cambridge University Masters in Bioscience Enterprise and Masters in Science & Technology programmes, and is an external assessor for Innovate UK and Asthma UK on various funding programmes.

After a BSc First Class Honours at Glasgow University, he trained in biochemical and molecular virology at the National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill, London (PhD awarded December 1984) and at the University of California (Irvine CA). He returned to the UK in 1988 and spent 15 years with Wellcome, GlaxoWellcome and GlaxoSmithKline before forming IML. His with-merit MBA was awarded in July 2006 and included financial strategy, strategy development and creativity & innovation modules.

Peter J. Morgan

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Professor Peter Morgan is the Director of the Rowett Institute (RI) at the University of Aberdeen. As Director and CEO of the Rowett Research Institute (RRI), he led the merger of RRI with the University of Aberdeen to create RI in 2008.

A key part of this was the development of a new £40 million Rowett Institute incorporating a state of the art human nutrition research facility on the University’s Medical School Campus, which he spearheaded and which was opened in April 2016.

As Director, he is responsible for the strategic direction of the Rowett Institute, part of which involves delivery of a strategic grant funded by Scottish Government worth ca £8 million per annum. This involved overseeing research across a wide spectrum of nutrition, including obesity, metabolic and gut health and life-course nutrition. Between 2008 and 2014 he served as a Vice-Principal at the University of Aberdeen, where he was involved in the strategic management of the University, particularly in relation to research and the Research Excellence Framework.

His personal research interests are in the neurobiology of energy balance as well biological rhythms. More recently this has been expanded to include gut microbiome-brain interactions. His research has been funded through grants from BBSRC, MRC and though strategic alliances with industry (pharma) and from Scottish Government and this has produced recognised impact. He is, or has been, a member of numerous scientific committees and working groups focus on research and policy related to nutrition, diet and health in Scotland and across the UK and Europe, including with BBSRC and MRC. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2002.

Geoff Potter

Geoff Potter has over 40 years’ experience as a senior practitioner in Corporate Communications, both in-house and consultancy, including 23 years directing worldwide communications for Glaxo/GSK.

He is currently Chairman of Avebury Public Relations Ltd and an associate with Meritus Consultants after having served as a senior partner with the international consultancy Instinctif Partners from 2007 to 2019.

Clients served as a consultant include the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA); Imperial College, London; Brunel University London; Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust; Quadram Institute; Rio Tinto plc; Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd.; Novartis; Banco Santander and Smith and Nephew plc.

Geoff was  a lay member of Council at the University of Leeds from 2011 to 2020 and is chairman of the Ryedale Festival in North Yorkshire . He is a former member of Council of the School of Pharmacy, University of London (now part of UCL) and a former trustee of Opera North and the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, Geoff is a first class honours graduate in Political Theory and Institutions from the University of Sheffield.

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Elizabeth Robertson

Dr Elizabeth Robertson is Director of Research at Diabetes UK.

Elizabeth is responsible for ensuring Diabetes UK is driving forward understanding, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diabetes, through investing in the best research minds and projects.

Before joining Diabetes UK, Elizabeth was the first Director of Research for Breast Cancer Now, formed from the merger of Breakthrough Breast Cancer and Breast Cancer Campaign in April 2015. Prior to the merger, she was the Director of Research, Policy and Information at Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

Previous roles include Director of Operations at Cancer Research UK, Dean of the Graduate Research School at Teesside University and Post-doctoral Research Associate in the Department of Biology at York University. Elizabeth completed her PhD at Queen Mary, University of London and Sloan Masters in Leadership and Strategy from London Business School in 2014.

Elizabeth is a Trustee of King’s College Hospital Charity and a former Trustee of the national volunteering charity, TimeBank.

Julie Waterfield

Julie Waterfield is Chief Financial Officer at the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), University of London. A woman with brown hair smiling

Julie joined the RVC in April 2014 having previously worked at Durham University and, prior to that, McGill University in Montreal,  Canada.

As Director of Finance at RVC, she leads the Finance Department and is responsible for the sound oversight and administration of the RVC’s financial affairs. As a member of the Principal’s Advisory Group, Julie ensures financial planning and underpinning financial strategy are robust and support delivery of the Royal Veterinary College’s strategic objectives and ongoing sustainability.

Julie is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy has holds an honours degree in French and German from the University of Bradford.

 

 

Maria Koufali

Dr Maria Koufali Maria Koulafiis Director of the Vaccine Innovation Pathway, NIHR, and brings more than 20 years of experience in driving the development and delivery of strategy and innovation in research support services in health and life sciences. During her 14-years as leader of the Nottingham Joint Research Office Maria developed and led a sustainable research and innovation service of 300 staff and over £27M in research grant income.

Maria is highly experienced in working with a wide range of research funders, local and national government in addition to the NHS, academia, and life sciences industry sectors. As a key contributor to the development of the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Integrated Care Board research and innovation plan, Maria worked with the research ecosystem to attract and nurture research and innovation talent and in developing infrastructure and processes for ensuring that under-represented communities gain improved access to innovation.

Maria holds a PhD in mitochondrial biology from m the Medical School, University of Dundee, and an executive MBA with Distinction from the University of Nottingham. Maria has worked in various NHS Research and Innovation and National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) regional and national roles since 2005 and most recently with Loughborough University to develop and lead a comprehensive transformation program for their Research and Innovation office.

Gill Fine

Gill Fine

Gill Fine is a Public Health Nutritionist with more than 40 years of experience gained in private, public and voluntary sector organisations. She has a passion for leveraging sound food and nutrition science for public health benefit and helping make healthier eating easier and enjoyable for consumers.

From 2004 to 2010, Gill was Director of Consumer Choice and Dietary Health at the Food Standards Agency. Her role was to provide strategic direction for the development of evidence-based food policies across a wide remit including nutrition, supplements, organics, additives, novel foods, food standards and general food labelling.

In April 2010, she moved to Cornwall to pursue her interests in nutrition and public health on a freelance basis. In addition to her consultancy work she has held various non-executive appointments with several charities, including the British Nutrition Foundation and Diabetes UK. She has also served on several government committees and is a longstanding member of the UK’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition.

Gill is a Member of the Nutrition Society and gained her MSc Nutrition from Queen Elizabeth College, London in 1981.

 

Brian Reid  

Brian has held an academic position at UEA since January 2000. Recently, from September 2023, he has taken up post as interim Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation.

As PVC-RI Brian is responsible for the overseeing UEA’s portfolios in research and in innovation. He comes to the role having served as Associate Dean for Innovation (Science Faculty; 2019-22) and Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research (2022-23).

Brian’s academic discipline is Environmental Sciences, specifically Soil Science. His research interests are in soil carbon as a regulator of soil ecosystem services and the opportunities for soil to contribute nature-based solutions to mitigate climate chance.

Brian has developed strong research collaborations in China. These focus on i) biochars as vehicles to sequester carbon, abate pollution and improve food security, and ii) the application of FT-ICR-MS to explore soil carbon chemodiversity and its linkages to microbial biodiversity.

Beyond his professional life Brian enjoys playing hockey and coaches the ladies 2xi at Dereham Hockey Club.