Nigel Titchener-Hooker leads the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacture in Emergent Macromolecular Therapies and was the past lead of the UCL Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (IMRC) in Bioprocessing programme. This involves a multidisciplinary group from over a dozen departments to research new methods to speed the development of efficient and robust processes for the manufacture of the next generations of macromolecular drugs. The work brings together researchers from Structural and Molecular Biology (Professor John Ward), and within the Faculty of Engineering Science significant collaborations exist with Computer Science (Professor Tony Hunter), Chemical Engineering (Dr. Eva Sorenson and Dr. Lazaros Papageorgiou). Internally Dr. Dan Bracewell, Dr. Nicolas Szita, Dr. Yuhong Zhou, Dr. Eli Keshavarz-Moore and Professor Mike Hoare help Nigel in the management of the IMRC consortium that comprises 15 leading national and international companies. A major focus of Nigel’s work is the creation of whole bioprocess models and the use of these to gain process insights and understanding. Here he works with Dr. Yuhong Zhou in the creation of graphical user interfaces to visualise better process trade offs. With Dr. Suzanne Farid, Nigel has pioneered studies of decisional tools addressing the interface between bioprocessing and business issues.

In line with the theme of whole bioprocess modelling, Nigel has collaborated with colleagues at Newcastle University (Professor Gary Montague, Professor Elaine Martin and Dr. Jarka Glassey) to create new ways of improving the performance of manufacturing processes by combining IMRC tools with agent-based methods.

Nigel chairs the Engineering Doctorate (EngD) in Bioprocess Leadership activity now directed by Prof Gary Lye. Since its inception the EngD programme has attracted over 60 sponsor companies to date and nearly 100 projects have been funded under this mechanism which complements the research within the Department.

Funding for the above research has come from the UK EPSRC, the TSB Technology Programme and a range of company collaborators.

Nigel has held consultancies with a broad range of international companies and serves on the editorial board of key peer-reviewed journals. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2008 in recognition of his pioneering work on biopharmaceuticals manufacturing. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and was awarded the Donal Medal for hsi contributions to Biochemical Engineering in 2013. He is Chair of the Board of the prestigious ACS-supported Recovery of Biological Products conference series.