Professor Rachel McKendry (London Centre for Nanotechnology and Division of Medicine at UCL) has been appointed as Executive Director of Discovery at Wellcome, a global charitable foundation that supports science to solve urgent health issues.
In her new role, Professor McKendry - a renowned expert in biomedicine and nanotechnology - will be responsible for identifying, enabling and investing in curiosity-driven research that helps make breakthrough discoveries across a wide range of research areas.
During her 22 years at UCL, Professor McKendry has led many world-leading research projects that bring together scientific expertise from many different fields. The most recent of these, supported by £24 million in government funding, is the UK Quantum Biomedical Sensing Research (Q-BIOMED) hub, which aims to harness quantum technology to improve early diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Prior to that, she was Director of the £11 million i-sense Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration (IRC) in Early Warning Sensing Systems for Infectious Diseases, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). She was the first woman to lead an EPSRC IRC since the scheme began in 1988.
Her research has focused on transformational advances in early disease diagnosis, using quantum technologies, deep learning and mobile devices to improve health and healthcare. She has won many prestigious prizes including the Royal Society's Rosalind Franklin Award.
Professor McKendry said: "It's been my privilege to work with so many brilliant colleagues at UCL and collaborators around the world. I'm so proud of the visionary interdisciplinary programmes we've built together, our papers, the research breakthroughs adopted in developed and developing countries, and the new cadre of interdisciplinary researchers trained, and I deeply value our friendships.
"I'm incredibly honoured to join Wellcome as Executive Director of Discovery, to lead this pivotal long-term programme supporting bold, paradigm-changing research with the potential to transform our understanding of human life, health and wellbeing in future."
In addition to her own research, Professor McKendry has been very active in influencing national and international scientific policy, for instance helping to shape the UK Government's strategy on quantum research for healthcare, co-chairing the digital medicine theme of the Topol review for the NHS, and serving on the diagnostics advisory group for the International Pandemic Preparedness 100 Days Mission.
John-Arne Røttingen, Wellcome CEO, said Professor McKendry had an "outstanding track record in leading research across multiple scientific disciplines", adding: "With her passion for transformative research and a strong ambition to improve research culture, Rachel is a great fit to lead our Discovery department."
Professor Geraint Rees, UCL's Vice-Provost (Research, Innovation & Global Engagement), said: "Professor McKendry has an outstanding, two-decade history of academic achievement at UCL, and we are extremely proud that she is taking up this important global leadership role. We would like to thank her for her fantastic contribution to UCL's academic work and wish her and Wellcome tremendous success in their mission to solve the world's most urgent health challenges."
