Speaker details

Terry Wilkins

Following his Bachelor and PhD degrees in chemistry from the University of London, Terry Wilkins began his industrial career in Amersham International Plc (recently acquired by GE) with senior management roles in R&D, manufacturing and business development in nuclear medicine, clinical diagnostics and molecular biology..  

In 1985 he joined the Nobel Laureate Christian Du Duve in his Institute for Cellular & Molecular Pathology in the Catholic University of Louvain, Brussels as Directeur Scientifique of the Institute’s technology transfer company. A novel nanoparticle immunoassay system and together with some 140 clinical assays created by his team of bioscientists and engineers was licensed and successfully commercialised by US, German and Japanese healthcare multinationals.  

In 1988 he joined ICI Plc as R&D Director of its Diagnostics business  His research group’s collaboration with Sir Alec Jeffries at the Lister Institute, UK, led to the creation by ICI of the World’s first commercial DNA Fingerprinting laboratories, in the US and UK.  In the mid-1990s he led an award winning ICI corporate engineering technology group producing substantial bottom-line and environmental improvements through re-engineering of ICI’s plants worldwide. In 2000, he created and became first Director of ICI’s global industrial centre of excellence for high-throughput nanostructured materials research.

In 2005 joined Leeds University as CEO of its new Nanomanufacturing Institute (NMi) where he also hold the Yorkshire Forward Professorial Cahir in Nanomanufacturing Innovation. The NMi is an interdisciplinary institute operating across 8 faculties and 23 research centres across the University. It has some 200 researchers and 85 academic staff embedded in these centres. The institute’s research addresses the scale up and manufacturing of novel nanomaterials to intermediates and nano-enabled finished goods for the healthcare, consumer, industrial and nanoelectronic and computing industries. Terry’s personal research areas include biomedical applications of nanotechnology, toxicology of nanomaterials, ethical training and innovation, entrepreneurship for nanotechnology manufacturing businesses.  

He has:
•    A personal Prince of Wales Award for Innovation & Production for his invention and commercial exploitation for the determination of the non-protein bound fractions of clinically important substances in blood based on nanoparticle immunoassay.
•    An ICI Supreme Award for Innovation & Creativity for re-engineering ICI’s nanocrystallite TiO2 production plants worldwide for profitability
•    The Freedom of the City of London for his work in biomedical instrumentation

His passions are his family, music, stained glassmaking plus taking leading edge science to market and helping bright young researchers develop to their full potential.