Zoe has over 20 years of experience working with human Pluripotent Stem Cells. After obtaining her PhD from the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh in 2006, she moved to the Centre for Stem Cell Biology at the University of Sheffield where she was handed a newly built clean room facility and was told to “make it work”. With over 15 years of experience developing Quality Management Systems, operating within a clean room environment and assisting with the early stages of cell therapy development, including with the UKs first-in-human clinical trial with a human embryonic stem cell derived therapy for Macular degeneration, Zoe’s focus is on sharing this experience with the wider regenerative medicine community to assist more therapies to make it to clinical trial, so that patients can receive their benefits.
Zoe was behind the team who derived the UKs first available clinical grade embryonic stem cell lines, has been an integral part of the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform since its inception and represented the field on the British Standards Institute committee for Regenerative Medicine. She also undertook an active role working with regulators at the HFEA, HTA and MHRA to resolve early regulatory issues which surround the translation of stem cells to clinical application, particularly when the European Union Tissue and Cell Directives were first introduced in 2005.