Emeritus Fellow Ian Charles
As the past founding director of the Quadram Institute, Norwich UK, Ian held dual roles as the CEO of Quadram and as Professor in the Medical School at the University of East Anglia. As CEO he created a world-leading institute for food and health research that leveraged the presence of one of the largest endoscopy units in Europe, alongside a clinical trials unit, and biorepository to maximise impact. Ian currently maintains research interests in the microbiome; high throughput genomic platforms and antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
His career has focused on translational research, and he was previously a Distinguished Professor and founding director of the ithree institute at the University of Technology Sydney, focusing on microbial genomics. Prior to that he was a professor and one of the founding scientists of the Wolfson Institute at University College London, leading both AMR and cancer research groups. He has held academic positions at Cambridge (at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology), Leicester University and Sheffield University, and spent 10 years in the pharma industry at Wellcome (now GSK). As an entrepreneurial scientist he has co-founded several biotech companies including Longas Technologies (high-throughput long-read DNA sequencing), Auspherix (anti-microbials) and Arrow Therapeutics (anti-infectives). He has held trustee and board positions at various organisations including as non-executive director of Genus plc and chair of Norwich Institutes BioSciences.
His work has resulted in societal impact, benefiting patient and healthcare outcomes. His invention and application of novel genomic platforms has led to new vaccines and drugs. During the Covid pandemic, Quadram was part of the COGUK sequencing/surveillance initiative characterising SARS-CoV2 variants, resulting in new approaches for evidence-based genomic-epidemiology to support Government policy.
Ian is a Fellow of the Linnean Society (FLS) and was awarded an OBE for his services to science and clinical research in 2023.