Professor Martin Warren has been appointed as the new lead for the Quadram Institute’s Food Innovation and Health science programme.

Prof Warren is a biochemist and is originally from Northern Ireland. A Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Kent’s School of Biosciences, Martin was awarded a BBSRC Professorial Fellowship to work on the bioengineering of complex metabolic pathways and in 2018 gained a Royal Society Industrial Fellowship. Prof Warren will retain his role at the University of Kent on a part-time basis, as well as an affiliation with the University of East Anglia.

Quadram Institute Director Prof Ian Charles said: “I’m delighted to be able to announce Martin Warren’s appointment as lead for our Food Innovation and Health research programme. His research interest in vitamin B₁₂ forms an important part of our research at the Quadram Institute and he joins at an opportune moment as we start looking ahead developing our science strategy.”

Martin Warren went to Southampton University where he read Biochemistry as an undergraduate (1981-1984). He stayed on in the Biochemistry Department to do a PhD with Professor Peter Shoolingin-Jordan, which initiated his interest in the genetics and biochemistry of tetrapyrrole biosynthesis.

After completing his PhD studies, he moved in 1989 to Texas A & M University, where he worked as a research associated with Professor Ian Scott FRS on vitamin B₁₂ biosynthesis. In 1991 he took up a lecturing position in the School of Biological Sciences at Queen Mary, University of London, where he stayed until 1995 when he moved to a Senior Lecturer position at the Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London. He was promoted to Reader of Biochemistry in 1998 but then moved back to the School of Biological Sciences at Queen Mary in 1999 to take up a Personal Chair. In 2005 he moved to the University of Kent, where he is Professor of Biochemistry. In 2007 he was awarded a BBSRC Professorial Fellowship to work on the bioengineering of complex metabolic pathways.

He has published numerous articles on tetrapyrrole biosynthesis and the biochemistry underlying inherited retinopathies, as well as co-authoring a popular book on the link between tetrapyrrole biosynthesis and the madness of George III.