Five new members join Cambridge Enterprise board
Cambridge Enterprise, the commercialisation arm of the University of Cambridge, has announced three new directors and two new advisors on its governing body.
A wholly owned subsidiary of the university, Cambridge Enterprise was founded in 2006 to help staff and students commercialise their ideas and expertise. The new members of the board are:
Professor Russell Cowburn, who explores the application of nanotechnology in magnetism, electronics and optics, has founded two start-ups, had more than 60 patents granted and invented an anti-counterfeiting technology, Laser Surface Authentication.
Tony Hickson, chief business officer for Cancer Research UK, who joins as an advisor. He leads the commercial partnerships team responsible for the commercialisation of IP from CRUK funded projects, new start-up creation, licences and corporate alliances. He was previously managing director of Imperial Innovations, which worked with spin-outs from Imperial College London, and worked in bioscience companies including Wellcome Group R&D, Murex Biotech, Abbott Laboratories and Kalibrant Limited.
Professor Patrick Maxwell, a clinician scientist and, since 2012, regius professor of physic and head of the School of Clinical Medicine at Cambridge. He has been key to discoveries on how changes in oxygenation are sensed and how genetic alterations cause kidney disease. He has a research group in the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, and is a non-executive director of Cambridge University Hospitals and director of Cambridge University Health Partners.
Lesley Millar-Nicholson, the director of MIT Technology Licensing Office (TLO), joins as an advisor. The TLO is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which works with MIT start-up companies, VCs and corporate partners, managing 800 new inventions a year from the MIT and Lincoln Lab campuses.
Professor Anna Vignoles, the professor of education (1938) at the University of Cambridge, who has published widely on widening participation in higher education, social mobility, the impact of school resources on pupil achievement and on the socio-economic gap in pupil achievement. An advisor to the government, her research interests include issues surrounding equity in education, school choice, school efficiency and finance and the economic value of schooling.
The new appointments come after academic non-executive director Professor Florin Udrea and Professor Tim Cook, former head of the University of Oxford’s technology transfer office, stepped down in 2018 and academic non-executive Director Professor Alan Blackwell announced his intention to step down in September 2019.
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