Supporting the transition to biobased chemicals panel session

Anna Zhenova is the CEO of Green Rose Chemistry, a mission-driven consultancy working to accelerate the sustainable chemical transition. Green Rose combines chemistry, sustainability, and market knowledge to solve clients’ problems. During Anna’s Ph.D. work at the University of York, she noticed the market need for high-quality, on-demand green chemistry research for industrial applications, and founded Green Rose Chemistry to meet it. Her Ph.D. research developed new applications for safe, bio-based solvents, combining state-of-the-art computational modelling and comprehensive experimental work, with a particular focus on polymers. Anna excels in translating academic expertise to real-world applications, and has a rather unscientific fondness for clear communication and polished graphics.

Mark is currently leader of the Process Development Unit at the Biorenewables Development Centre (BDC) in York.  The open access scale up and demonstration centre has been set up to bridge the gap between industry and academia by supporting companies/universities, promoting the bioeconomy and demonstrating new technologies.  He specialises in innovation support through technology transfer – problem solving, winning public funding and proof of concept through to prototype development in the bioeconomy, waste valorisation and chemistry sectors.

He completed his first degree and PhD in Chemistry at the University of York.  Between 2005 and 2010, he was technical manager for YorkTest Laboratories an SME in-vitro diagnostic laboratory.  In 2010, he re-joined the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence as a technical manager responsible for delivery of the Carbon Trust Pyrolysis Challenge project.  This role evolved into technical operations manager for the GCCE, managing multiple projects and industrial engagements before setting up the BDC in 2012.  Mark is a Chartered Chemist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and currently sits on the Industrial Biotechnology Leadership forum, Circa Renewables Chemistry Institute Board and BBNet Advisory Group.

Yvonne Armitage is Director of the Biotechnology Business Unit at the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI). CPI is a leading independent technology innovation centre and a founding partner of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. CPI uses years of market sector expertise and state-of-the-art assets to drive forward innovation and reduce risks and costs associated with product and process development. The Biotechnology BU delivers (bio)-process design, development and scale up projects in a number of market sectors for customers and collaborators.

Immediately prior to joining CPI Yvonne worked as an Innovation Manager, focused on developing external connections and partnerships and supporting the academic staff of the Industry and Innovation Research Institute at Sheffield Hallam University. Yvonne also worked for several years leading industrial biotechnology and bioeconomy activities at the Knowledge Transfer Network, contributing to the development and delivery of national strategies in bioeconomy and

biotechnology.  Yvonne spent 20 years in industry (Ciba, BASF, ISP) where she held various research and management positions, developing biotechnology-based products and processes for various chemicals and market sectors. Here she gained first-hand experience of taking bioprocesses from design to full scale production.

Yvonne has a degree in chemistry and a PhD in microbiology and biochemistry. She is a member of a range of scientific and management boards at national. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

For Innovate UK Paul leads on the UK & EU funding programme delivery for Industrial Biotechnology (IB) stakeholders (RCs, DSIT, DEFRA, DfT, SMEs, Catapults, RTOs, HEI, PSRE), develops the Materials & Manufacturing team strategies and business cases, oversees and supports the impact evaluation on project portfolios and represents Innovate UK as an IB expert in thought leadership forums.

Andy is the Chief Chemist for Bio-Sep, a company pioneering the use of ultrasonic processing to fractionate biomass into platform chemicals. He has worked in sustainable chemistry throughout his career, developing green technologies for a diverse range of sectors including recycling, wastewater treatment, pharmaceuticals, construction materials, energy, and biomass processing. At Bio-Sep, he is leading all aspects of chemistry process development and chemical analysis.

Neil joined the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) in 2017 and manages their scale-up facilities at Heriot-watt university (FlexBio) and the University of Strathclyde (RapidBio).  Working closely with the wider innovation centre to help academics, start-ups and SMEs scale their bioprocesses from lab-scale to semi-pilot scale (up to 30L) to demonstrate commercialisation potential.  A technically challenging step that requires a team of expert scientists and engineers to complement a suite of upstream and downstream processing equipment.

Before joining IBioIC, Neil worked as technical lead for Scottish biodiagnostics firm Quotient, bringing a blood transfusion protein microarray diagnostic test from concept to large-scale biomanufacturing.  Neil holds a PhD from the University of Nottingham developing diagnostic tools in the field of food allergy and immunology.  He originates from Kent where he achieved his undergraduate, which also involved a yearlong placement working for the Bioprocess development group (BDG) at the former Pfizer site in Sandwich.