Sara supports a number of early stage scientist-founded synthetic biology/industrial biotech companies both in the UK, Europe and elsewhere. These companies operate across all sectors - food, therapeutics, agritech, new materials, chemicals and oil manufacture etc - and they will change the world!
Sara works closely with these companies to identify their IP, come up with a solid IP strategy and get them ready for fundraising.
Sara prefers a close, integrated relationship with clients so she can best proactively advise - particularly considering that most of the these early-stage companies have not had much prior experience with IP.
On the other side of things, she helps investors with due diligence into biotech companies ahead of investment.
Sara has found a passion in recent years for educating academics about the importance of, and basics of, IP. Having been in academia herself until she was 33, she knows that IP is not something given the consideration it deserves by academics.
Sara has given numerous IP talks and workshops to various universities, accelerator programmes, and iGEM.
Sara is proactive in the synthetic biology community and is engaged with the roles she takes on, most recently that of the vice chair role of the Bioindustry Associations’ Engineering Biology Advisory Committee (EBAC).
Education/Alumni: Sara completed her degree in biochemistry and genetics at the University ahead of a PhD at the same institute in engineering artificial yeast chromosomes. Following her PhD Sara worked as a postdoc for around eight years in yeast molecular biology, investigating mechanisms of heavy metal toxicity and phenotypic heterogeneity.
