Dr Lench has over 25 years’ research experience in human molecular genetics, and was a co-Founder of Congenica in 2013.

Nick was previously Director of the NE Thames Regional Genetics Service at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, with responsibility for the strategic and operational management of a genetics service that provides DNA diagnostic testing to a population of approximately 4.5M people.

Nick is an author of over 125 peer-reviewed publications (original research papers, reviews and book chapters) including Nature, Nature Genetics and the Lancet and named inventor on 4 novel patents. He is an honorary Reader at the UCL Institute of Child Health.

Professor Joanne Hackett is the Chief Commercial Officer at Genomics England and lead member of the Business and Investment Committee.

As CCO, Joanne is responsible for Genomics England’s industry engagement strategy by developing, managing and accelerating relationships with commercial organisations − creating opportunities for collaboration both nationally and globally.

Joanne is a clinical academic with a formidable track record of entrepreneurial success, as she translates academic research into medical and commercial returns.

Ian has been involved in genomics since around the time the term was coined. He obtained his D. Phil from Oxford University in 1989, determining the long-range structure of the human MHC. During his postdoctoral studies he worked with the genomic pioneer Maynard Olson in St Louis, before returning to the UK to construct a physical map of human chromosome 22. At the Sanger Centre from 1993 his work focussed first on genome sequencing including the first human chromosome sequence in 1999, and subsequently on developing functional maps of the human genome. This included gene structure maps, variation maps, and the first chromosome-wide linkage disequilibrium map. Recently Ian's research interests include experimental and computational approaches to genome-wide mapping of regulatory elements and chromatin state in the human genome as part of the NHGRI ENCODE project, as well as understanding the influence of variation on regulatory elements in human and other organisms. Ian has been at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in Cambridge, UK since 2007.

Philippa is responsible for public and parliamentary affairs, strategic communications and marketing, as well as supporting corporate management and development. Experienced in policy development, charity governance and science communication, she is our editor-in-chief for our website and knowledge products.
Philippa trained in Natural Sciences (Pathology) at Christ’s College, Cambridge before completing her doctorate at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology and moving to work in the pharmaceutical industry. She is a Senior Member of Hughes Hall.

Dr. Maria Chatzou holds a PhD in Biomedicine, MSc in Bioinformatics and BSc in Computer Science and Biomedical Informatics. She is a biotech innovator and a proud geek, expert in bioinformatics, medical informatics and high performance computing (HPC). She is also a passionate entrepreneur. She has already founded two companies, Innovation Forum Barcelona and the Techstars-backed Lifebit.
As a researcher at the Centre for Genomic Regulation, in Barcelona, Spain, she designed and deployed tools and methods that facilitate the analysis of Big Biomedical Data, allow for biological discoveries, and promote personalised medicine. She was also part of the developing team of Nextflow, a programming framework that is revolutionising the computational analysis of genomic data.
Dr. Chatzou is a frequent industry speaker and has spoken on the subject of HPC, Cloud & Big Data, Genomics Workflows, Personalized Medicine, Women in Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Start-Ups and Deep Tech Innovation in many international conferences.