programme leader, Medical Research Council, Harwell Institute
Andy has been a programme leader at the Medical Research Council’s Harwell Institute since 1996. His scientific research focuses on the topic of how genes (and genomes) regulate embryonic and fetal development and how errors in developmental processes can result in disease.
From 2009 to 2018, Andy was a member of the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority, the UK regulator of IVF clinics and human embryo research. During this time, he chaired two expert panel assessments of the safety and efficacy of mitochondrial donation techniques (aka ‘three-person IVF’), paving the way to their legalization in the UK. He is a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and chaired its 2016 working group that examined ethical issues associated with genome editing applications in a variety of contexts. Andy has degrees from the universities of Cambridge and London and, when a postdoc in Australia, learned to play the didgeridoo (quite badly).