John Ansell Director and Co-founder of the Scottish Stem Cell Network, Professor John Ansell is Professor Emeritus at the School of Molecular and Clinical Medicine, University of Edinburgh. He is also a member of the Roslin Institute Ethics Committee, Professor Ansell is Co-Director of the Scottish Instrumentation and Research Centre for Advanced Mass Spectrometry (SIRCAMS). He is a member of the Editorial Board of 'Cloning and Stem Cells'.

Professor Ansell's previous positions at the University of Edinburgh include, Professor of Experimental Haematology; Head of Division, Oncology; Director, University of Edinburgh-Leukaemia Research Fund, John Hughes Bennett Laboratories; Deputy Director, Edinburgh University Cancer Research Centre and Honorary Lecturer, University of Durham.

Aidan is the Chief Executive Officer of Roslin Cells. Since moving to Scotland fifteen years ago, Aidan has worked with a wide variety of high technology start-ups and early stage companies. In each case his role has been to help the founding scientists or engineers transform their novel technology into a strong business proposition. After graduating in Economics, Aidan qualified as a Chartered Accountant and worked for eight years in property finance, before moving over to the high tech sector. He holds a masters degree in law specialising in Intellectual Property law and is a visiting fellow at the School of Law at the University of Edinburgh.

Born in Edinburgh, Kevin Docherty graduated with a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of St Andrews. He then did his PhD at the University of Edinburgh before undertaking a post-doc at the University of Cambridge to work on sugar transport mechanisms. During a second postdoctoral spell at the University of Chicago, he worked on proinsulin biosynthesis and processing. From 1984 to 1993 he was a member of academic staff in the Department of Medicine at the University of Birmingham. He moved to Aberdeen in 1994 to the MacLeod Smith Chair of Biochemistry. His long term research interest has been in the biology of the islets of Langerhans with particular emphasis on transcription factors that control islet gene expression and development. In recent years he has been working on embryonic stem cells and the extent to which they can be used as a model system to recapitulate in vitro the development of the endocrine pancreas.

Stuart J Forbes joined the MRC CIR on 1st May 2006 as Professor of Transplantation and Regenerative Medicine. Prior to this SJF was a Wellcome Advanced Fellow at Imperial College looking at the contribution of the BM to liver regeneration and fibrosis. SJF first identified the BM as a significant source of hepatic myofibroblasts in human BM and liver transplant patients. His current work is to understand the intrahepatic stem cell niche.

Mr Ilyine has been a member of the advisory board at the Scottish Stem Cell Network from November 2005. He was Vice President and COO of Stem Cell Sciences plc through February 2008, and now acts as a life sciences industry consultant. Mr Ilyine brings considerable international business experience through 17 years working with Rhone-Poulenc, in France as International Product Manager and in Indonesia and Australia in Managing Director roles. He also serves as an Industry representative on the UK National Stem Cell Network Committee.

Michael was closely involved in establishing Smith and Nephew’s joint venture with Advanced Tissue Sciences (1994) which resulted in one of the first commercially available cell therapeutic products – DermaGraft.

He was also jointly responsible for moving Intercytex from a pre-clinical research company to an AIM-listed biotech with several cell therapy products in the clinic. Since leaving Intercytex, Michael has worked as CEO of an orthobiologics business, and was recently employed as Vice-President of Operations for a company treating liver cirrhosis patients with an autologous infusion of stem cells (developed to initiate regeneration of new hepatic tissue).

In 2006 Michael was involved in a BIA cross-industry working-party, providing input into the EU Advanced Therapy Directive which was implemented early 2009. He is currently Commercial Director at ImmunoSolv Ltd.

Mats has an extensive experience from senior executive positions from the international pharma, diagnostic and biotech industry. From 1984 as President in the Ferring Group key companies, internationally as well as in Sweden until 1998. From 1998 he has been working as president in companies subject to restructuring, preparing for “take off” in the diagnostics and biotech area. He has also been instrumental in several structural business deals involving companies or parts thereof.

Programme Manager for ITI-Life Sciences, Dr McKenzie started his career with a PhD in Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Glasgow in 1990. He subsequently moved on to a post doctorate then staff position at the University of Nice (Dept. of Biochemistry). Following ten years of signal transduction and control of cell growth and division, Fergus moved back to the UK in 2000, as a Senior Scientist with Amersham Biosciences. Within this role, he put together the stem cell biology and instrumentation for high content and high throughput screening. In November 2004, Fergus joined ITI-Life Sciences as a Programme Manager, delivering commercially focused R&D within the Scottish Sector.

David was recently announced as Director of MSSS after five years as Head of Neurological Services with Sue Ryder Care, where he was responsible for overseeing 11 neurological care centres. Prior to this, he worked as Manager for Scotland and Head of Policy and Campaigns for the Parkinson’s Disease Society.

David is also a member of the policy and implementations boards associated with the National Service Framework for long term neurological conditions. He is also a member of various policy and advisory boards for the NHS, Independent and Voluntary sectors relating to neurological disease management.

Jo Mountford is Senior Lecturer in Stem Cell Technologies at the University of Glasgow & SNBTS Cell Therapy R&D, hES Cell Group Leader. A basic and translational scientist, Dr Mountford specialises in elucidating biochemical and metabolic control mechanisms that regulate the behaviour of human adult and embryonic stem cells. Having worked with haemopoietic stem cells since completing a PhD in 1994, Jo is now particularly interested in the generation of blood, endothelial cells and cardiomyocytes.

Angela Scott has a BSc in life sciences and has over 24 years experience in cell culture. Director of Operations at Angel Biotechnology PLC, Angela worked for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund for ten years on the derivation and characterization of human primary cells and drug resistant animal cell lines. She then worked for ten years with PPL (Pharmaceutical Proteins Limited) on a variety of research and development programmes focusing on pioneering work within Nuclear Transfer in addition to stem cells and large-scale protein production to cGMP. Angela has also gained experience in facilitating projects from development to cGMP production in her role as Development Manager for Excell Biotech Limited. Prior to her current role, Angela was retained as a Quality Consultant for ESI International (Singapore).

Dr. Paul De Sousa has trained as a developmental and reproductive biologist, with a specific interest in mechanisms controlling the creation of developmentally competent eggs and embryos and cell regeneration. This training included graduate and post-doctoral research at the Universities of Toronto and Western Ontario in Canada, and University of Pennsylvania, in the USA. In 1998 he joined the Roslin Institute in Scotland where he began applying his basic research interests to animal biotechnology, specifically the use of animal cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer to create transgenic animals as models of disease and as organ donors for xenotransplantation.

In 2002 his group began focusing on the derivation of new human embryo stem cells in accordance with emerging regulatory standards for therapeutic use. In 2005 he joined the University of Edinburgh as a Senior Research Fellow establishing a laboratory focused on the use of human embryos stem cells in regenerative medicine and underpinning egg and embryo biotechnology. In concert with this he co-founded Roslin Cells Ltd, a not-for-profit company established in July 2006 as a tri-partite collaboration between the Roslin Institute, the University of Edinburgh and the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service for the derivation and marketing of research and therapeutic grade hESCs. He serves as Roslin Cells Chief Scientific Officer.

Kate Storey is a Developmental Biologist researching cellular and molecular mechanisms directing neural differentiation in embryos and ES cells. She is Associate Dean of Research and Chair of Neural Development in the College of Life Sciences, University of Dundee. Recent work in her group focuses on signals and epigenetic mechanisms that regulate neural differentiation onset. In 2007 she also established the Tissue Imaging Group in collaboration with Professor Jason Swedlow, facilitating work on signalling dynamics directing neuroepithelial cell behaviour. Kate Storey is co-founder and organizer of the Scottish Stem Cell Biology Group. Supported by the SSCN, this runs tri-annual meetings including international and national speakers along with talks by post-doc and graduate students from Stem Cell research groups across Scotland. She has served on grant panels for the Wellcome Trust and BBSRC and on the BSDB executive committee. She is also a trustee of the Company of Biologists.

Charles Swainson is Medical Director at NHS Lothian, with responsibility across all NHS services in the area. He qualified in medicine in 1972 in Edinburgh. After training in the UK and Sydney in Renal Medicine, he went to Christchurch, New Zealand as a Senior Lecturer in 1981. He returned to a consultant post in Edinburgh in 1986, and was appointed Medical Director in 1996. He was the first Clinical Director in Medicine at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in 1992, and has served on the Council of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He was a founder member of the Cochrane Renal Collaboration. He was a founder member and deputy chairman of the Scottish Association of Medical Directors. He chairs the Steering Group for the Scottish Patient Safety Programme, and Educating Tomorrow’s Doctors workstream for the Postgraduate Medical Education Training Board. He is a member of the UK Funding Councils Medical Advisory Committee and the Health Foundation Quality Advisory Group.

He enjoys teaching and clinical research as well as limited medical practice. His other interests include wine, skiing, opera, and golf.

Formerly Divisional Head of Gene Expression and Development at the Roslin Institute, Professor Sir Wilmut achieved international acclaim when he led the team that produced "Dolly," a sheep cloned from the cells of an adult sheep in 1996. The birth of Dolly was a major scientific breakthrough in the effort to clone animals so that their organs may be transplanted to humans.

Professor Sir Wilmut has been appointed as head of Scotland’s new Centre for Regenerative Medicine, based on the site of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary at Little France, adjacent to the new research facilities of the University of Edinburgh Medical School.