Chemical Biology Keynote Speakers

Mark Bradley Professor of Therapeutic Innovation, Precision Healthcare University Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London Mark received his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1989, followed by post-doctoral studies at Harvard and returning to the UK as a Royal Society University Research Fellow (University of Southampton). In 1997 he was made a Professor of Combinatorial Chemistry setting up the UK’s Centre for Combinatorial Chemistry. In 2005 he moved to the University of Edinburgh, where he was Director of a £15M Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration in the area of Optical Molecular Imaging (Proteus 2014-2023) and a Doctorial Training Centre (60PhD) in Optical Imaging with Entrepreneurship. In Aug 2023 he moved to Queen Mary University of London as Professor of Therapeutic Innovation and part of the Precision Healthcare university Research Institute. He held an ERC Advanced Grant on “SmartMaterials” for cellular control. He is a co-founder of Ilika Technologies (2004) (which floated on AIMS in 2010), DestiNA Technologies (2010) and Edinburgh Molecular Imaging (2014) and Biocaptiva (2021).
Barry Potter Professor, University of Bath Barry Potter is Professor of Medicinal & Biological Chemistry at Oxford University. He studied chemistry at Oxford, completing a D.Phil on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalysed phosphoryl transfer and receiving a D.Sc in 1993. After postdocs in Oxford and at the Max-Planck-Institute for Experimentelle Medizin in Göttingen, Germany, he became Lecturer in Biological Chemistry at Leicester University, winning a Lister Institute Fellowship, then moved to the Established Chair and Headship of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Bath as Lister Institute Professor. He returned to Oxford in 2015 as a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator and Fellow of University College, remaining Visiting Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at Bath. Research interests are in mechanistic enzymology, the chemical biology of signal transduction, and anticancer drug design and discovery. He has brought academically-discovered drugs to multiple clinical trials and co-founded the spin-out company Sterix, acquired by major pharma. He serves, or has served upon, numerous editorial boards including the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, ChemMedChem, Future Medicinal Chemistry and is an Editor of BJChemBio and was Associate Editor of the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. He has published over 500 papers and is inventor of 45 granted US patent families. He has won four interdisciplinary Royal Society of Chemistry medals, the GlaxoSmithKline International Achievement Award, was “Investigator of the Year” at the 2012 European Life Science Awards and currently holds the 2015/16 RSC Biological & Medicinal Chemistry Section Endowed Lectureship in Medicinal Chemistry. He was elected to Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Academia Europaea.
Hiroaki Suga Professor, The University of Tokyo Hiroaki Suga was Professor in Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology in the University of Tokyo from 2003 to 2010, and is now in the Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science in the University of Tokyo. He is also a scientific founder of Tokyo-based biotechnology company, PeptiDream Inc. Tokyo.