Centre of Excellence has crucial role to play in bioscience development
SCIENCE LEADERS
Leadership – Dr Jen Vanderhoven is the new director of Teesside University ’ s National Horizons Centre ( main image ) in Darlington .
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As the new director of Teesside University ’ s National Horizons Centre takes up her post , Dr Jen Vanderhoven explains how she wants to make the region a global hub for the bioscience industries .
here has , perhaps , never been a time in history when bioscience has commanded so much front-page news .
From antibody testing to a global search for a vaccine , the Covid-19 pandemic has thrust this field of science firmly into the spotlight .
It is a fact of which Dr Jen Vanderhoven , the newly-installed director of the National Horizons Centre in Darlington , is patently aware and proves why the £ 22.3m national centre of excellence for the bioscience industries is destined to play such a vital role in the economic resurgence of the Tees Valley .
“ The Covid-19 pandemic has shown precisely why bioscience is so important ,” she says .
“ From vaccine manufacturing to testing , we have seen a real need for hundreds , if not thousands , of highly skilled jobs in this sector .
“ Training these people and ensuring that they have the necessary skills will be critical and , as a university-based institution , we ’ re perfectly placed to do just that .
“ However , in order to succeed we need to make sure we are providing exactly what employers want and a key part of my job will be engaging with the region ’ s bioscience companies to find out what they need from their workforce .”
This is a challenge with which Jen will be more than familiar , having a vast amount of experience working at the nexus between academia and industry .
She joins Teesside University from Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies where part of her role as vice-president involved developing a five-year research and innovation programme which looked at how the company worked with universities to address the challenges of manufacturing biologics .
Prior to that , Jen was the manager of a government-funded Industrial Biotechnology Network . In this position , she helped to co-author the UK National Industrial Biotechnology Strategy to 2030 , which involved working with more than 150 bioscience companies and academics across the UK .
The National Horizons Centre , which opened last year , is a national centre for teaching , research and training in the bioscience industries .
It is working to address the growth needs of the