Epilepsy Society

Board Trustee

LifeArc

Accountable for setting LifeArc’s portfolio strategy in line with charitable objectives and delivering the portfolio through effective project leadership and management. Develop and lead the Translational Challenges as a core element of strategy; these programmes accelerate healthcare innovation by transforming promising life science ideas into life-changing medical breakthroughs for patients. They consider the entire patient pathway – from diagnosis through to treatment and lifestyle support in complex areas of healthcare need. LifeArc provides translational insight, spanning our core offerings of science, funding and advice and connect these collective strengths and resources with the expertise, capabilities and funding of other life sciences partners to catalyse the translation of innovation.

Chief Project and Portfolio Officer

Accountable for LifeArc’s Translational Challenges to accelerate healthcare innovation by transforming promising life science ideas into life-changing medical breakthroughs for patients.

Head of Translational Challenges

Accountable for ensuring effective governance, processes, systems and resource are applied across the entire company including our scientific research programmes, IT improvements, strategic and infrastructure, together with those utilising LifeArc’s offerings of advice and funds.
Developing and implementing strategy, translating LifeArc’s strategic ambitions into well-crafted and achievable operational plans, managing the portfolios, ensuring focus on the highest-level company priorities. Leading major change initiatives to support integration of emerging technologies and adapting operating model design for delivery and agility.

Head of Corporate and Portfolio Project Management

Accountable for building and maintaining productive collaborative relationships with major research partners. Managing the Tech Transfer of antibody technology platforms into LifeArc (transgenic mice, B cell sorting and screening, and in silico bioinformatics for candidate selection) ensuring all facilities, equipment and resources in place to optimise use for therapeutic discovery.

Consultant, Alliance Manager

KQ Labs

Accelerator programme run by the Francis Crick Institute, supporting innovative early-stage data-driven health start-ups to validate their ideas and put their exciting companies on the path to receive further investment.

Governance Board Member

PIPMG

The aim of PIPMG is to support development of the Project Management profession in the global pharmaceutical, biotech and associated industries by:
1. Encouraging recognition of the key role of project management in the industry
2. Enabling learning and sharing of best practices in portfolio, programme and project management
3. Providing Training, Coaching and Continual Professional Development
4. Providing a forum for communication and information exchange between members
5. Introduction, participation in and support of initiatives intended to improve the practice of project management internationally

Executive Committee Member

BTG plc

Global Head of Immuno-Oncology 
Accountable for the strategic direction and commercial success of our Immuno-Oncology platform, managing collaborative partnerships with global pharmaceutical companies, leading research institutions and societies. 
Lead a broad portfolio of pre-clinical and clinical research projects investigating the ability of our interventional oncology therapies (selective internal radiation, ablation solutions, embolics) to drive immune responses, both alone and in combination with immunotherapeutics (check point inhibitors, next generation immunotherapies).

VP Immuno-Oncology

Head of Global Project Management organisation  
Managed R&D governance process, annual portfolio review, and business analytics to track and improve performance, prioritising budget and resource on a risk-balanced pipeline of R&D projects that maximise business value.

VP Project Management

Head of Global Project Management organisation 
Line management of a global team (US, EU, APAC), set project management vision and strategy, ensuring effective project management resource, processes and systems applied across the business, with high standards for delivery.

Group Manager of Project Management

Clinical lead of multiple out-sourced clinical trials with small molecules, peptides, biologics and medical devices (spanning Phase I, II, III and IV).

Clinical Development Executive

Merck

Directed exploratory neuroscience research project teams, selecting multiple candidates for clinical development using pre-clinical models.

Research Manager

Directed learning and memory disorder program, heading GABA α5 inverse agonist pre-clinical research project for the treatment of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.

Project Director

Headed an exploratory research team of technical personnel running electrophysiological assays for Neuroscience disorders (CHO cell lines, Xenopus oocytes, mouse brain slices) for structure-activity relationship assessment of novel small molecules and drug candidate prioritisation.

Team Leader

Conducted exploratory research, characterising the pharmacology of tachykinin receptors in the brain (nucleus tractus solitarius, dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus, amygdala, entorhinal cortex).

Senior Research Biologist

Karen Skinner is Chief Project & Portfolio Officer at the medical research organisation, LifeArc with accountability for their portfolio of Translational Challenges. These ambitious programmes focus primarily on Rare Disease (including ultra-rare diseases, MND and rare dementias, rare respiratory conditions and childhood cancer), and Global Health. In addition to her role at LifeArc, Karen is a Board Trustee of the Epilepsy Society and member of PIPMG Executive team. 

She has over 30 years of experience within the life sciences industry, having held numerous leadership roles in blue chip big pharma, specialty pharma, biotech and nonprofit organisations. 
She is passionate about biomedical science and technology, applying that knowledge to create innovative products that make a real difference for patients. She believes that collaboration is the key to accelerate the progress of scientific discoveries to create medical breakthroughs that transform the lives of those living with disease. 

Life Sciences | Director | Transformational Leader | Portfolio Management | Keynote Speaker

Karen Skinner

The Open University

Lecturer

University of Birmingham

Research Fellow

Universiteit Maastricht

I was working as a Senior Postdoctoral fellow in the department of Cardiac Thoracic Surgery at Maastricht University, carrying out research aimed at improving patient health by developing novel  ventricular assist devices as well as improving detection capabilities and ablation techniques in the field of atrial fibrillation

Senior Postdoctoral Fellow

KU Leuven

FWO Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Bio-Plus Safety Pharmacology

Bio-Plus Safety Pharmacology was a contract research organization providing fast, flexible and standardized solutions in the field of non-clinical cardiovascular safety (CVS) pharmacology. During my time at Bio-Plus I was involved in novel model validation as well as business development and writing of SOPs and scientific literature

Project Leader Safety Pharmacology

Maastricht University

Over the last decades, drug induced cardiac arrhythmias, including Torsades de Pointes (TdP) have become a major issue in drug development. There is a pressing need for better understanding of the mechanisms involved in TdP manifestation to allow for enhanced prediction (via more predictive surrogate markers) and prevention of this arrhythmia (via novel targets). This thesis elucidates a number of cellular mechanisms involved in beat-to-beat variability of repolarization, which is one of the newer surrogate markers thought to have utility in predicting this arrhythmia. The thesis highlights the role of calcium release from the calcium store within the single myocyte in altering this parameter. Additionally the dissertation illustrates the link between mechanical and electrical activity under specific conditions and provides further validation of an additional novel marker for proarrhythmia (the electro-mechanical window). Finally, research contained within this thesis suggests antiarrhythmic strategies for the development of novel therapeutic agents.

PhD Student

Merck Sharp & Dohme

During this period i worked in the neuroscience research centre,working on various projects, including TRPV1 channels  using various electrophysiological techniques, such as patch clamp recordings in both native tissue and transfected cells

Staff Biologist

Specialties: QT Prolongation; Beat-to-beat Variability of Repolarization; Arrhythmogenesis; Calcium Handling; Cardiovascular Safety Pharmacology; Patch Clamp; In-vivo screening; Electrophysiology; Atrial Fibrillation

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The Battle

Karen Skinner

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