Chris Hillier
(CARTHA Board member, September 2008 to March 2009)
(CARTHA Council of Advisor, September 2006 to August 2008)
Professor, School of Life Sciences
Glasgow Caledonian University, UK
Chris Hillier is Professor of Physiology at Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland and a serial entrepreneur. In 2002, he co-founded Biopta Ltd, a unique contract research organization that specializes in drug screening tests and instruments, and currently acts as their non-executive Chief Scientific Officer. In 2006, he spent a year in the United States as a Visiting Professor with Integrated DNA Technologies, the largest suppliers of nucleic acids in the United States and a leader in innovative biotechnologies, before returning to Scotland to found Sistemic Ltd, a company focused on providing services to the growing RNA interference market building on the profound discoveries that won this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine for Fire & Mello.
Chris has developed the initial innovative technology that underpins Biopta’s product pipeline and is currently developing new technologies for Sistemic. Combining considerable business and management experience with a strong R&D background, he has published and presented extensively and acted as a consultant and business mentor for young Scottish entrepreneurs giving seminars on start-up strategies, IP protection and motivational talks to academic entrepreneurs. In the words of the UK national newspaper, the Guardian, he has “received just about every award or grant (for innovation and enterprise that) Scotland has to offer” including a Proof of Concept Award, a Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowship, a John Logie Baird Award for Innovation, Scottish Executive SMART and SPUR Awards and was a beneficiary of the innovative Scottish Co-Investment Fund that directed public funding into private equity for the first time in the UK. Since returning to Scotland, Chris has been active on Glasgow Caledonian University’s Health Research Advisory Group and working towards a Global Health agenda focusing at this time on health professional training in Africa.