ANNUAL REVIEW | 2016 BUILDING COMMUNITY
Dr Hazel Fermor
Was: Post-Doctoral researcher, Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, University of Leeds
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Now: Lecturer in Musculoskeletal Regenerative Medicine, University of Leeds
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My research focus is on the development and translation of acellular scaffolds for musculoskeletal regeneration. I completed a PhD in the Faculty of Biological Sciences, developing a novel bioprocess to produce osteochondral scaffolds for cartilage repair. I undertook postdoctoral research within the same group where I had training in translation through the IKC’ s PGCert in Professional Innovation Management, as well as competing in – and winning – the national ChemistryYES competition. Both of these activities were encouraged and supported by the IKC.
This training, and the guidance of the Technology Innovation Managers, informed my research, increased my commercial awareness and helped direct the pre-clinical studies to advance our acellular musculoskeletal scaffold products.
My distinctive innovation expertise has allowed me to stand out from the crowd in an academic sense, enabling me to conduct research with much greater likelihood of achieving real impact. I believe it was pivotal in my recent appointment as a Lecturer in the School of Biomedical Sciences at the University.
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Dr Martin Stanley
Was: Post-Doctoral researcher, Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, University of Leeds
Now: Concept Development Engineer at Xiros Ltd
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I am now nearly a year into working at Xiros Ltd exploring new product concepts, having been a postdoctoral researcher in iMBE for 5 years. At Xiros, we develop and manufacture textiles for soft tissue repair, and I’ m tasked with exploring new areas to which we can apply our manufacturing capability and skills.
My experience at iMBE was invaluable, working in multidisciplinary teams on projects in addition to my own, and having multiple opportunities to work with both industrial collaborators and clinicians on IKC-funded projects.
I also took advantage of the numerous partner conferences and Early Career Researcher meetings through Regener8, MeDe Innovation and WELMEC, to build up a network of contacts both within the University and externally, which I am now using in my new position.
I recently introduced Xiros to the IKC Proof of Concept Industry Partnership call – we’ re really interested in this as a means of establishing new collaborative projects with groups at the University.
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