Our scientific advisors

Richard Bourne is currently Professor of Digital Chemical Manufacturing at the University of Leeds based at the Institute of Process Research and Development (IPRD), a leading academic in process chemistry, who brings considerable expertise in automated flow systems combining online analysis, feedback control and evolutionary algorithms to provide process understanding and optimisation.

Richard is a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair working on Digital Discovery and Manufacturing of Pharmaceuticals.

Bryn Roberts brings a wealth of experience in the pharmaceutical sector having spent 15 years at Roche, the Swiss multinational healthcare company. He is currently Senior Vice President and Head of Data Services at Roche Information Solutions and until recently was Global Head of Operations, Pharmaceutical Research & Early Development. As a member of the Pharmaceutical Research & Early Development Leadership Team he led innovation in disciplines such as data science and laboratory automation, including diverse applications of digital and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.

Nessa Carson is a Principal Automation Scientist at Syngenta, who brings a wealth of practical experience in a range of automated synthesis capabilities and their application in both discovery and process research. 

Natalie Fey is an expert in computational approaches as Associate Professor at the Centre for Computational Chemistry, University of Bristol. She strengthens its commitment to utilising state of the art computational tools to enhance the efficiency of chemistry through effective use of data available within deepmatter^®’s DigitalGlassware and ICSynth platforms.

An experienced synthetic chemist, with a track record of delivering complex projects within the pharma and biotech sectors. David built and ran a business focused on automated medicinal chemistry, where compounds would be synthesised, then tested in a primary assay on the same platforms, with the results fed back into the software to inform the next round of automated synthesis.