Lorraine Kerr in conversation with Andrea Taylor

Interview Transcript

Andrea: So, I'm Andrea Taylor, I'm [now CEO at] Edinburgh Innovations, which is the University of Edinburgh's Commercialisation Arm. And today I'm joined by Lorraine Kerr, Director of Strategic Partnerships for North America and Global. Welcome, Lorraine.

Lorraine: Thank you, Andrea.

Andrea: And we're here today because many congratulations. You've been awarded the University of Edinburgh's prestigious Chancellor's Award. Congratulations. It was a pleasure to nominate you for this award given all of the work that you've done over many years working for Edinburgh Innovations to develop large strategic partnerships. How do you feel on receiving this?

Lorraine: Well, it's a real honour, so just to be nominated. And so thank you for nominating me. It's an honour, as I say, to be nominated and a real privilege and really exciting to actually win the award. It's a real recognition of the hard work that I've done and the wider team as well. It's not just me. There's a group of us working both in Edinburgh Innovations and across the University to develop these partnerships. So it's a recognition of that team ethos, that one University approach.

Andrea: Let's hear a little bit more about you, Lorraine. Maybe you can talk a little bit about your journey from being at University to where you are today.

Lorraine: So, I have a background in Life Sciences. So doing a degree, here in Edinburgh, and then a PhD. And then I moved and spent most of my career at the Academic Industry Interface, worked with Big Pharma, worked with smaller companies. And then also worked as a senior manager both in a company and in University. And that's really helped understand the kind of drivers and the needs of both sides of the relationship. And that enables me to understand their drivers, what they need to do and help come up with creative solutions. And it's a really exciting time for the University, given all of the developments in innovation, the expertise and the opportunities that we're seeing with industry.

Andrea: So perhaps you can talk a little bit more about working at that Academic Industry Interface.

Lorraine: I was in a real shift in the last few years where companies are outsourcing a lot of their research and innovation and working with some of the world leading universities and Edinburgh is one of those. And we'd proactively going out to speak to companies about where their challenges are. And they're really keen to engage further to really take advantage of that world leading expertise, that cutting edge research and where they could apply that. We could work together to apply that research to their challenges as we push the boundaries of where we could go with the research.

Andrea: And you're right, Lorraine, we're seeing a real interest, particularly in multidisciplinary approaches. And as we combine expertise, for example, across medicine, data driven approaches, engineering to innovate at those interfaces.

Lorraine: Absolutely. And I think that's where we really were very privileged in our team. We get to see that across the University. And that's part of the job I really love, is pulling that expertise from different disciplines together. And those different perspectives really shed a new light on the challenges and come up with really great ways to tackle the challenges and solve the problems.

Andrea: And your award is recognising some of the success that you've had. What have been some of your career highlights?

Lorraine: It'd be remiss of me not to talk about the partnership with Fujifilm Dyson Biotechnology, a big company who work in making medicines for other companies. And as a CDMO, their pipeline and what they're doing is changing. And they really were looking to innovate that and apply new technology and coming together with our academic expertise and myself to really look at how we could tackle their challenges. We've developed that from a few, an initial few PhD students to now to a large partnership involving over 100 staff at the University and the company. And doing a mixture of collaborative research, doing training and teaching and through into careers for our undergraduates. So, there's benefits of both sides. And that's really focused on developing novel biologics and the ability to produce those novel biologics using cells. And it's applying engineering biology principles and new ways of doing that by processing, increasing that yield and expressing the difficult yield proteins that are going to form the basis of many of the new medicines that are going to treat patients worldwide.

Andrea: And it was really great to see that partnership, obviously starting around a recognition of the University's expertise, as you say, in engineering biology, the fact that we have the largest automated foundry in the world. But now that that partnership has become established, that it's moving and exploring other areas to really underpin the scope and breadth of the relationship.

Lorraine: Absolutely. As we expand that across the University, both by suggesting things to them, but as we understand, both parties understand each other more, we can realise more and more opportunities for both sides. And that's really exciting. It's recently been described as a really kind of exemplar best practice of academic-industry interaction. And that was really nice to hear. And I think that's part of the basis of this award, which is really exciting for all of us.

Andrea: And these examples of partnership, I think, have helped to raise the University's ambition of what is possible. And certainly, as you know, in our team, we're looking to build upon that and use it as a blueprint going forward to develop new partnerships that really reach across the University. What's next and what are you looking forward to?

Lorraine: So, I really started to take things more internationally, starting to move across to North America, where my focus is, as a people in the team, focus on Asia and globally. We're a global institution working in that environment. So really starting to explore the opportunities there, speaking to the companies as a real exciting range of companies who are interested to hear what we've got to see and the opportunities that present.

Andrea: And we've taken the approach of taking out what we're calling our innovation engine. So industry-focused propositions that are aligned to the University's key strengths across future health, climate and sustainability and data-driven innovation. And whilst they speak the language of industry, obviously the role of the academic is important. Perhaps you could say a little bit about that. You've been championing many strong academic relationships across the University.

Lorraine: Yeah, so our relationships with the academics and the staff across the University is key to this. It's about developing a deep understanding and trust. The experts are definitely the academics in their fields. But where the really exciting bit we've got is cherry-picking something about pulling people together across the University from different disciplines to actually create something new and exciting. And putting together relationships where we haven't seen before, introducing them to people where you think, oh, this might go with that, that fits around another challenge. So that's quite exciting and quite a privilege in some respects. A lot of people don't get that opportunity.

Andrea: So, as you say, Lorraine, we've got some exciting future international plans. Whilst you're heading up targeting in North America, our colleague Caroline Woodside is also leading the charge in engaging in Southeast Asia. And we're working extensively with stakeholders, in-market advisors and colleagues across the University to take that one-team approach. We've seen opportunities, for example, in Southeast Asia around their interest in our innovation in sustainability and climate change. Where are you seeing some areas of innovation in different sectors going forwards?

Lorraine: Sustainability is key for everybody at the moment, understandably. Everybody wants to do things more sustainably. AI and machine learning are bigger areas, future medicines, future health. And also those areas where things are coming together, so there's deep pockets of expertise. Engineering biology is a huge one for us, which fits into sustainability, but also can be applied in different areas.

Andrea: And you're right, and you'll see it. We're seeing the interface so that data-driven approach is really undercutting innovation in both sustainability and health. And it's great to see these different pillars of expertise coming together. Obviously, the University is number one for computing and informatics in the UK, having one of the oldest AI institutes in the world. And this is a really exciting time. So, just to wrap up. Lorraine, it's been great talking to you, and many congratulations again on the award, a great achievement. So thanks very much.