A board of directors, accountable to the members of the company (the Medical Research Council and The Wellcome Trust), act as company directors and as charity trustees. They have overall responsibility for the direction, management and control of UK Biobank Limited. The Board is chaired by Sir Alan Langlands, principal and vice chancellor of the University of Dundee, and former chief executive of the National Health Service for England.
Board members:
- Sir Alan Langlands
- Professor Sir John Bell
- Mr Peter Benson
- Dr Wendy Ewart
- Dr Pat Goodwin
- Professor Bill Ollier
- Professor Mike Pringle
- Dr Alison Spaull
- Mr C Marc Taylor
Sir Alan Langlands FRSE : Alan Langlands is the Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England responsible for promoting and funding high quality education and research in universities and colleges with higher education programmes. He was formerly the Principal and Vice Chancellor at the University of Dundee (2000-2009) and Chief Executive of the NHS in England (1994-2000). He also has a particular interest in the scientific basis of health services and he chairs the boards of UK Biobank and the Health Foundation. He is also a co-opted member of the Office for the Strategic Coordination of Health Research. Alan was knighted in 1998 for his services to the NHS and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He also holds a number of honorary degrees and fellowships.
Professor John Bell: John Bell is Regius professor of clinical medicine at the University of Oxford. For the ten years prior to this appointment, he served as Nuffield professor of clinical medicine, University of Oxford, where he built up the largest biomedical research department in the UK. Prior to coming to Oxford, he held a clinical fellowship at Stanford University, California. He was a co-founder of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford. Professor Bell's research interests are focused on understanding the mechanisms involved in mediating disease, the genetic factors contributing to disease susceptibility and the molecular events associated with T cell activation through the T cell antigen receptor. As Nuffield professor of clinical medicine, he oversaw the largest research department at Oxford University which encompassed activities spanning structural biology through to epidemiology. In his current position, he contributes to the development of scientific strategy in Oxford, working with other organisations on a national and international level. Professor Bell is a Member of Council of the University of Oxford and a Trustee of The Rhodes Trust. Professor Bell is Chair of the UK Biobank Science Committee.
The Hon Peter Benson LVO: Mr Peter Benson was educated at Eton College, and Edinburgh University where he obtained a degree in liberal arts. He qualified as a chartered accountant with Cooper Brothers & Co, subsequently Coopers & Lybrand, in 1965, becoming a partner in that firm in 1971. Based in the City of London, his early professional career concentrated on the provision of audit, investigative and financial advisory services, principally to major public and multinational companies. During this period, he spent time in Western Europe, Africa and North and South America. He played a significant role in the privatisation of British Telecom in 1984. Thereafter he specialised particularly in this area, working extensively in the Middle and Far East and Australasia. Peter is a highly experienced public speaker and has lectured all over the world on privatisation and other financial topics, frequently on Government and Ministerial Missions. He retired as a senior partner from PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2001, and is currently a non-executive director for a number of commercial and charitable concerns.
Dr Wendy Ewart: Wendy Ewart studied at the University of Southampton and at the University of Bristol where she received her PhD in Neuroscience. She was appointed to an academic position at Queen Mary, University of London (formerly the London Hospital Medical College) where she was a senior lecturer in Physiology and also Deputy Director of the Gastrointestinal Research Unit. Dr Ewart joined the staff of the Wellcome Trust in 1991 and was responsible for managing funding programmes including neuroscience and mental health and until 2003 headed the Trust’s funding programme in health and population science in the developing world. She also was a non executive director of an acute NHS Trust for 7 years completing her service over the final year as Chair. From 2003 Dr Ewart was Head of Research Strategy at the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College where she was responsible for developing and implementing a new faculty research strategy. Dr Ewart was appointed to the Medical Research Council in August 2008, where she is responsible for strategic planning, international strategy and evaluation and a member of the MRC’s senior management team. Dr Ewart also currently chairs the Scientific Advisory Committee of the INDEPTH Network of demographic surveillance sites.
Dr Pat Goodwin: Pat Goodwin is Head of Department for Pathogens, Immunology and Population Studies at The Wellcome Trust. Pat Goodwin obtained her BSc (Physiology and Biochemistry) and PhD (Microbial Biochemistry) from the University of Southampton. During her doctorate she investigated the metabolism of one-carbon compounds by Methylobacterium extorquens AM1 (then known as Pseudomonas AM1) and she continued to research into the biochemistry and genetics of methylotrophs until she joined Wellcome Trust in 1990. During her time at the Trust Pat has managed the Molecular and Cell Panel, the Infection and Immunity Panel and the Functional Genomics Development Panel. She is now Head of Department (Pathogens, Immunology and Population Studies) and has overall responsibility for two funding streams – Immunology and Infectious Disease, and Populations and Public Health. Pat has been an active member of the Society for General Microbiology, serving as Convener of the Education Group (1990-1995), an elected member of Council (1994-1995) and Scientific Meetings Officer (1995-2000) and in 2006 was elected onto the Council of the Biosciences Federation.
Professor Bill Ollier: Bill Ollier is Professor of Immunogenetics at Manchester University and Director of the Centre for Integrated Genomic Medical Research. He also currently holds the positions of Honorary Consultant Clinical Scientist with Salford Royal Hospitals NHS Trust, and Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences, University of Liverpool. He graduated with a BSc in Zoology from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1973 and was awarded a PhD from the University of London in 1979 for his research into renal transplant rejection. He was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists in 2000. He moved to the University of Manchester in 1988 to set up genetic epidemiology laboratories within the internationally renowned Arthritis Research Campaign’s Epidemiology Research Unit. Professor Ollier’s research has now spanned over 30 years and he has published over 380 peer reviewed publications. He is well known for his studies of histocompatibility and the genetic basis of immune response reputation. He was Chairman of the British Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics between 1994 to 1999. Over the last 10 years Professor Ollier’s research interests have focused largely on investigating the genetic basis of common complex disorders. These have centred primarily on rheumatic diseases, inflammatory and autoimmune conditions, neurocognitive disorders, and complex traits in companion animals. More recently he has developed an interest in pharmacogenetics and research into variability in efficacy and the development of adverse reactions to anti-inflammatory agents and new biological therapies. He has an active programme of pharmacogenetic research in the HIV and rheumatic disease.
Professor Mike Pringle: Mike Pringle is the Professor of General Practice and Head of the School of Community Health Sciences in the University of Nottingham. His research interests include the management of chronic disease, health informatics and quality assurance. PRIMIS, of which he is Strategic director, is a service contracted by the NHS Information Authority to improve the use of computers and data in primary care. QRESEARCH is a new general practice derived database for research. It holds anonymised coded data from over 400 practices covering 3 million patients. Mike was elected to the General Medical Council for 3 years from July 2003, and he sits on the Council of the Medical Defence Union. In the past he has been Chairman of the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners (1998-2001) and co-chair of the External Reference Group and the Implementation Group for the National Service Framework for diabetes.
Mr C Marc Taylor: Marc Taylor is head of research systems and governance in the Research and Development Directorate of the Department of Health. The directorate is led by Professor Dame Sally C Davies. Marc has been the Deputy Director leading on system reform, information systems and good governance in health research since 2006. He was the lead official for research policy, strategy and governance in 2004 to 2006. In 1999 to 2004 he was head of NHS R&D Policy, when his responsibilities included implementation of research governance in the NHS, and management of the £550m national NHS R&D Budget. Marc was previously head of estate policy and then director of finance at NHS Estates, an agency of the Department of Health concerned with NHS property and procurement policy. Before that, he held a series of posts in the Department of Health’s finance function. During this period, he was secretary to the 1994 Culyer task force on supporting R&D in the NHS. Until 1991, Marc served in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where he worked first as a research assistant on China, and then on overseas development aid policy. He was head of the development section at the British High Commission in India in 1986 to 1989. Marc is married with four sons. They live in North Yorkshire.
Dr Alison Spaull: Alison Spaull is Director of the Chief Scientist Office, the research funding division of the Scottish Executive Health Department. The office supports and promotes high quality research aiming to improve the services offered by the NHS and the health of the people of Scotland. Alison has considerable experience of managing research programmes and has worked in health research for over a decade. Prior to that she was research manager for the national agricultural research and advisory company where she was responsible for overseeing both the Government funded and commercial research activities of an organisation with wide ranging interests in the land based industries. Her early research interests were in agriculture and she spent nearly a decade conducting research at Rothamsted (a BBSRC Institute) after her PhD. This has given her a life long interest in the practical applicability and translation of research findings into improved practice. Alison established Scottish Health Innovations Ltd to develop and exploit innovations from staff of NHS Scotland and she is a member of its Board. She is also on the technical advisory board of Albany Ventures, a venture capital company, and a Governor of Glasgow Caledonian University.