Mark Smales

Mark Smales is a Principal Investigator at NIBRT under a joint appointment partnership with the University of Kent. Over the last 20 years Mark’s research has focussed on advancing our understanding of biotechnological products and processes at the fundamental biological or chemical level to enable their manipulation and control and subsequent translation of this knowledge into design of new and improved bioprocesses and products. His research has had the ultimate aim of improving: (a) biotherapeutic recombinant protein yields and quality, including design and manufacture of novel format biotherapeutics that are difficult to express, (b) the manufacture of gene therapies, (c) the process of re-tuning cell processes and metabolism via synthetic biology approaches, (d) the design, manufacturability and testing of RNA therapies, (e) extracellular vesicle production and application, (f) development of diagnostics. The majority of these projects are undertaken in collaboration with industry with the lab having strong biotechnological and industrial links that allow the testing and exploitation of technologies.

Mark is Director of the Industrial Biotechnology Centre and a member of the Industrial Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology Research Group at the University of Kent, as well as serving as Chair of the BBSRC Biopharmaceuticals Steering Group and as a member of the BBSRC Funding Committee E Panel in the UK. In the past, Mark has been a member of the BBSRC/EPSRC Bioprocessing Research Industrial Club (BRIC) Steering Committee, the EPSRC Review College, an Executive Editor of Biotechnology Letters, co-Director of the BBSRC Network in Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy (NIBB) BioProNet, and co-Chair of the Indian Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) SAG Committee on Biopharmaceuticals.

The group welcomes enquires from potential postgraduate students, research fellows, potential collaborators and industrial partners to discuss possible projects and how teams can work together to provide solutions to the current and future challenges in the wider advanced biotherapies sector.