Andrew Griffith

Minister of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology

Andrew Griffith was appointed Minister of State for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on 13 November 2023.

He was previously Economic Secretary to the Treasury between 27 October 2022 and 13 November 2023.

He was Financial Secretary to the Treasury between 7 September 2022 and 27 October 2022.

He was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department for International Trade between 8 July 2022 and 7 September 2022.

He was Parliamentary Secretary (Minister for Policy and Head of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit) from 3 February 2022 until 8 July 2022.

He was appointed Adviser on Sustainable Infrastructure Investment from September 2021 until the end of December 2021.

He was the UK’s Net Zero Business Champion from November 2020 until the end of the Cop26 UN Climate Summit.

He was elected Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs in 2019.

Professor Sir Brian Hoskins

Founding Director, Grantham Institute for Climate Change

Brian Hoskins has been a Professor of Meteorology in the University of Reading for 40 years, was the Founding Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London and is now its Chair.

He has had many national and international roles, including being a member of the UK Climate Change Committee for its first 10 years, and involvement in the IPCC.

He is a member of the science academies of the UK, USA, China and Europe, and was knighted in 2007 for his services to the environment.

Dr Mary Maxon

Executive Director of Biofutures, Schmidt Futures

Mary E. Maxon, PhD is the Executive Director of BioFutures, an effort focused on maximizing the potential of biotechnology toward a circular bioeconomy.

Previously she was Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and before that she was Assistant Director for Biological Research at the Office of Science and Technology Policy where she was the principal author of the Obama’s Administration’s National Bioeconomy Blueprint. Currently, Mary serves as a US State Department-appointed Delegate to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, and Converging Technologies Working Party. She is also a member of the Global Bioeconomy International Advisory Council, a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Standing Committee on Biotechnology Capabilities and National Security Needs, and a member of the Carnegie Institution for Science Board of Trustees.

She was the program lead for the Marine Microbiology Initiative at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the first Executive Director of the Science Philanthropy Alliance, and also has extensive experience in industry in a number of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

Mary holds a PhD in Molecular Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley, and did postdoctoral training in genetics at the University of California, San Francisco.

Chi Onwurah

Shadow Minister (Science, Research and Innovation)

Chi Onwurah is a British Member of Parliament representing Newcastle upon Tyne Central and is also Shadow Minister Science, Research & Innovation.

Former Shadow Ministerial positions:

April 2020-December 2021 Digital, Science & Technology

October 2016 – April 2020 Industrial Strategy Science & Innovation (and Shadow Digital Minister Feb-April 2020)

September 2015-October 2016 Culture and the Digital Economy

January 2013 - Sept 2015 Cabinet Office leading on cyber security, social entrepreneurship, civil contingency, open government and transparency

October 2010 – January 2013 for Innovation, Science & Digital Infrastructure working closely with the Science and business community, with industry on Broadband issues, and on the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill. Chi continues to encourage women in STEM.

Prior to Chi’s election to Parliament in May 2010 she worked as Head of Telecom's Technology at the UK regulator Ofcom focussing on the implications for competition and regulation of the services and technologies associated with Next Generation Networks.

Prior to Ofcom, Chi was a Partner in Hammatan Ventures, a US technology consultancy, developing the GSM markets in Nigeria and South Africa. Previously she was Director of Market Development with Teligent, a Global Wireless Local Loop operator and Director of Product Strategy at GTS.  She has also worked for Cable & Wireless and Nortel as Engineer, Project and Product Manager in the UK and France, 

Chi is a Chartered Engineer with a BEng in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College London and an MBA from Manchester Business School. She was born in Wallsend and attended Kenton Comprehensive School in Newcastle, where she was elected the school’s ‘MP’ in mock elections aged 17.

Chi is a Fellow of both the Institution of Engineering & Technology (FIET) and the City & Guilds of London Institute (FCGI) and also an Honorary Fellow of the British Science Association.

Professor Dame Angela McLean

Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Government Chief Scientific Adviser

Professor Dame Angela McLean DBE FRS is the Government Chief Scientific Adviser having taken up the role in April 2023. She is also Head of the Government Science and Engineering Profession. Prior to this Angela was the Chief Scientific Adviser for the Ministry of Defence.

Until April 2023, Angela McLean was a Professor of Mathematical Biology in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University and a Fellow of All Souls College. Angela’s research interests lie in the use of mathematical models to aid our understanding of the evolution and spread of infectious agents.

Angela is interested in the use of natural science evidence in formulating public policy and has co-developed the Oxford Martin School Restatements: an activity which restructures and presents the evidence underlying an issue of policy concern or controversy in a short, uncharged, intelligible form for non-technical audiences.

Angela established Mathematical Biology at the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council’s Institute for Animal Health in 1994. Before this, Angela was a Royal Society Research Fellow at Oxford University and a Research Fellow at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.

In 2009 Angela was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. She has been awarded the Gabor Medal in 2011 and the Weldon Memorial Prize in 2018. She received her damehood in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Professor Nigel Scrutton

Director , Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub

Nigel is Professor and Director of the EPSRC Future Biomanufacturing Research Hub and the BBSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre 'SYNBIOCHEM'. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society. He is a Founding Director and CSO of the fuels-from-biology company C3 BIOTECH Ltd and its subsidiary company C3 BIOTECH (Maritime and Aerospace) Ltd. 
He is former Director of the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB) (2010-2019), which was recognised by the award of the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education (2018-20) as 'a leader in the UK’s strategic development of biotechnology and bio-manufacturing, through innovative technologies in partnerships with industry'. 

Nigel’s group is noted for its contributions to the study of enzyme catalysis, mechanistic and structural biology, synthetic biology, and bio-based chemicals/fuels manufacture. His work is interdisciplinary and is supported by state-of-the-art infrastructure for biophysical chemistry and synthetic biology that he and colleagues have established in MIB.

Dr Michael Köpke

Chief Innovation Officer, LanzaTech

Dr. Michael Köpke is the Chief Innovation Officer at LanzaTech, a public company that uses biology to capture and transform carbon into sustainable products such as fuels, chemicals, proteins and materials. Michael is overseeing the process of innovation and technology partnerships within LanzaTech. Since joining in 2009, Michael built up the company’s synthetic biology platform and computational biology capabilities.

Michael is a pioneer in synthetic biology of CO2-fixing microbes and carbon-negative biomanufacturing with 20 years of experience in the industrial biotech field. Michael holds a Ph.D. in biotechnology from University of Ulm and is an inventor of over 500 patents and author of more than 50 peer-reviewed publications. Michael is also an awardee of the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge award for Greener Synthetic Pathways.

Beyond his role at LanzaTech, Michael serves as an adjunct faculty at Northwestern University and council member at the Engineering Biology Research Consortium, where he chairs the roadmapping working group. Michael led and contributed to various community-based efforts including development of a research roadmap on engineering biology for climate and sustainability by a consortium of over 90 experts, as well as serving on several editorial andscientific boards and as co-chair for international conferences and workshops.

Professor Regina Birner

Chair, Social and Institutional Change in Agricultural Development at the Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute

Regina Birner is the Chair of Social and Institutional Change in Agricultural Development at the Hans-Ruthenberg-Institute of Tropical Agricultural Sciences at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany.  Her research focuses on policies, governance and institutions that are essential for global food security and the bioeconomy. Before joining the University, Regina Birner led the governance research program of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, DC. She has more than 25 years of empirical research experience in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Her work appeared in international journals such as World Development, Global Food Security, Information Technology for Development and the Journal of Cleaner Production. She has been consulting with international organizations, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Bank. She is a member of the Bioeconomy Council of the German Federal Government, the International Advisory Council on Global Bioeconomy (IACGB) and the International Consortium on Applied Bioeconomy Research (ICABR). Regina Birner holds a PhD in Socio-Economics of Agricultural Development from the University of Göttingen, Germany, and an M.Sc. in Agricultural Sciences from the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

Dr Mike Daniels

Vice President of Product, Evonetix

Mike Daniels is Vice President of Product at Evonetix, having joined the business in March 2021 with over 20 years’ experience of marketing, product management and business development across the biotechnology sector. His previous roles include Director level positions in Marketing and Product Management at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Cancer Research UK, GE Healthcare and Promega UK. In addition, Mike is a member of the UK’s Biosecurity Leadership Council and represents Evonetix with the Engineering Biology Advisory Committee of the BIA and with the International Gene Synthesis Consortium. Mike holds a PhD in Molecular Genetics and Protein Biochemistry from the Department of Biochemistry and Genetics at the University of Newcastle and has completed numerous professional qualifications and training in marketing, management, and IP law.