Simon Campbell, PhD, FRS, CBE

Simon Campbell received his PhD from the University of Birmingham and after postdoctoral appointments in Chile and Stanford, he joined Pfizer Central Research, Sandwich UK in 1972. Dr Campbell retired in 1998 as Senior Vice President for Worldwide Discovery and Medicinals R&D Europe. He has co-authored over 110 publications and patents and was a key member of the research teams that discovered Cardura™, Norvasc™, and Viagra.™

Dr Campbell's contributions have been recognised by the Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Medicinal Chemistry (1989), the Herschberg Award from the American Chemical Society, the Industrial Research Institute (US) Achievement Award (1997), and election as Fellow of the Royal Society (1999). Currently, he is president of the Royal Society of Chemistry and is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds and Birkbeck College.

Currently, Dr. Campbell acts as Scientific Consultant for Abingworth Management and various biotech companies. He chairs the Expert Scientific Advisory Committee for the Medicines for Malaria Venture initiative and the Strategy and Resource Board at the Royal Society of Chemistry, he is an Editor-in-Chief for the journal Current Opinion in Drug Discovery and Development and is also a member of the BP Amoco Technology Advisory Council.

Randall K. Johnson, PhD

Randall Johnson has a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Minnesota and a PhD in Pharmacology from George Washington University. He has 30 years experience in government and industry working in cancer drug discovery/development and screening technologies. Twenty years were spent with GlaxoSmithKline/SmithKline Beecham where his accomplishments included setting up a centralised high throughput screening department, establishing antineoplastic drug discovery and the successful development and commercial launch of Hycamtin™ (topotecan). Dr Johnson has held a number of senior positions at GSK/SB, including Associate Director at the Departments of Natural Products Pharmacology and Molecular Pharmacology, Director of the Departments of Biomolecular Discovery and Oncology Research and Group Director of Oncology Research.

Currently, Dr Johnson runs a consulting business, providing drug discovery and development services with a focus on anticancer agents and drugs used in supportive care in cancer patients. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of six biotech companies.

David Knowles, PhD

David Knowles graduated from Bristol University in 1973 with a BSc in Microbiology and was awarded a PhD from the Department of Biochemistry, Imperial College of Science and Technology, London in 1977. He joined May & Baker, a division of Rhone Poulenc, in 1976 to work on therapeutic approaches targeting bacterial adhesion. Since then, he has established an international reputation in anti-infectives research and development and has worked in several major international pharmaceutical companies including Beecham Pharmaceuticals, Wellcome Research Laboratories and SmithKline Beecham. In 1995 he was appointed Director of Molecular Microbiology at SmithKline Beecham, based in Pennsylvania. He returned to the UK at the end of 1996 and gained useful experience in anti-infective development at SB before embarking on a career in the biotech sector.

In 1999, he joined the board of RiboTargets plc and served as CSO for over three years before becoming Director of R&D at British Biotech, after the two companies merged. Since October 2003, he has been working as an independent consultant for a number of Private Equity Investors from the UK, Europe and the USA and has recently agreed to be CEO of a new Cambridge-based company called CellCentric. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of a number of Biotech companies and is also a member of the Supervisory Board of Axxima AG, based in Munich. He is a past Member of Council of the American Society for Microbiology and on the editorial board of Current Opinions in Microbiology.

Lynn Silver, PhD

Lynn Silver earned a BA from Brandeis University and a PhD from Tufts University Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology. After postdoctoral work on bacterial DNA replication at the Université de Genève, and on DNA replication biochemistry of bacteriophage T4 at NIH, she joined Merck Research Laboratories (Rahway, NJ) in 1982, where she worked for 21 years, as a group leader and Senior Investigator. Her research at Merck included antibacterial discovery efforts in both natural products and chemical collections, support of chemical synthetic projects on improved antibacterials, and pre-clinical evaluation of antibacterial drug candidates. She was a member of several project teams coordinating the advancement of drugs through the regulatory process, as well as the Merck antibiotic licensing review committee.

Since 2004, she has been an independent consultant in the area of antibacterial discovery, working with biotechnology companies in the US and Europe, applying her experience in pharmaceutical and academic research to the problems and projects of antibacterial discovery. Lynn is a member of the Faculty of 1000 (Pharmacology and Drug Discovery), the editorial board of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (1997-2008), Scientific Advisory Boards of several biotechs, has chaired and given invited talks at numerous meetings in the field and, throughout her career, has authored many significant research papers and reviews in the fields of bacterial genetics, physiology, biochemistry, and the discovery and analysis of antibacterial agents.