Macomics Announces New Hires that Expands its Macrophage-based Drug Discovery R&D Team

Edinburgh and Cambridge, UK, 1 October 2021 - Macomics Ltd, an immuno-oncology company with world-leading expertise in macrophage biology, announces today that it has made five new appointments to its scientific team, to support and accelerate its R&D.

Moritz Haneklaus PhD joins as Senior Scientist, Carmen Rodriguez Seoane PhD as Scientist, with Chantell Payton PhD and Conor Poland PhD joining as Associate Scientists, and Sadie Kemp BSc as Senior Research Technician. Moritz will be based in Cambridge and will utilise his deep immunology expertise to support progression of the company's discovery portfolio and development of novel cell-based assays. He brings 10 years molecular immunology experience to the company with international experience gained in the UK, Ireland, Sweden and Germany.

Carmen, Conor, and Sadie will be based at Macomics’ Edinburgh site and Chantell at the Cambridge site. Together they bring over 40 years combined research experience to the company, with specialisms including complex cellular models, cellular and molecular biology, functional genomics, and cancer biomarker discovery.   

This expansion follows Macomics’  follow-on financing of £4.24 million announced in July. It is developing precision medicines to modulate macrophages for the treatment of cancer. The company is progressing a diversified portfolio of therapies targeting disease specific tumour associated macrophages (‘TAMs’) towards the clinic.  Its target discovery platform enables identification and validation of novel macrophage therapeutic targets and is based on its deep understanding of macrophage biology.

Commenting on the expansion Dr Luca Cassetta, VP Immunology and co-founder who joined the company full time from his academic role said:

“I welcome our new colleagues to the team. Each brings valuable experience as we progress our early-stage antibody programs towards the clinic, expand our portfolio and further invest in our target discovery technology.”

Macomics now employs 13 across its sites on the Cambridge Science Park and within Edinburgh University and will expand further in the coming months.

Dr Steve Myatt, CEO of Macomics added:

“Our vision is to become a leading immuno-oncology company pioneering macrophage-based therapies for the treatment of cancer. These new appointments reflect our strategy to build a world-class team across all functions and support us in the delivery of this vision.”

-Ends-

About Macomics – www.macomics.com

Macomics Ltd is an immuno-oncology company with world-leading expertise in macrophage biology, developing precision medicines to modulate macrophages for the treatment of cancer.  The company is progressing a diversified portfolio of therapies targeting disease specific tumour associated macrophages (‘TAMs’) towards the clinic.  Its target discovery platform enables identification and validation of novel macrophage therapeutic targets and is based on its deep understanding of macrophage biology.

Macomics was co-founded in 2019 by Prof. Jeffrey Pollard and Dr. Luca Cassetta, University of Edinburgh, internationally recognised leaders in macrophage biology.  It has R&D and office facilities in Edinburgh and Cambridge, UK and is backed by Epidarex Capital, Scottish Enterprise, and Caribou Property Limited.

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About the new appointments

Moritz Haneklaus, PhD - Senior Scientist

Moritz is a molecular immunologist with over 10 years’ experience studying human myeloid biology. He has extensive expertise in applying molecular techniques and genomics to complex immunological questions.

He joins from an academic career, most recently as a Research Fellow at the Institute of Child Health, University College London studying brain tumour single cell analysis. Prior to that he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge as part of the Open Targets consortium as investigating neuroinflammation in the context of Alzheimer’s disease.

Moritz obtained his PhD in Immunology at Trinity College Dublin studying inflammatory signalling in macrophages. He has a MSc in BioMedicine from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden and a BSc in Biology from University of Heidelberg, Germany.

Carmen Rodriguez-Seoane, PhD – Scientist

Carmen has over 10 years of research experience with expertise in the use of human and embryonic/induced pluripotent stem cell models and a wide range of molecular biology techniques.

Carmen joins from the University of Edinburgh where she was a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Inflammation Research, having started as a Research Assistant. She moved to the UK after obtaining her PhD from the Brain Protein Malfunction Lab at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain. She has a M.Sc. in Biomedical Research and a B.Sc. in Biology.

Chantell Payton, PhD - Associate Scientist

Chantell has extensive experience in tissue culture, cell line development and characterisation, confocal microscopy, and in vitro assay development.

Chantell joins Macomics from the world-leading Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh, where she undertook a PhD investigating the acquisition and potential biomarkers of cancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy resistance. She has a BSc (Hons) from the University of Lincoln where she undertook several research placements investigating protein expression in several cancer signalling pathways

Conor Poland, PhD - Associate Scientist

Conor has experience in academic and industrial settings. He is a cell biologist experienced in working with induced pluripotent stem cells, immortalised cells, primary cell cultures and fibroblasts from human skin samples.

He joins from Cignpost Diagnostics, a private Covid testing facility, where he established and ran its qPCR laboratories for COVID-19 testing during the recent pandemic. Prior to this he completed his PhD at the University of Dundee at the Jacqui Wood Cancer centre, where he gained extensive experience with induced pluripotent stem cells and CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing among other molecular techniques. Prior to this he gained experience at Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Oxford and in the microbiology lab at Geneius Lab Ltd. He has a BSc (Hons) Human Genetics from Newcastle University.

Sadie Kemp - Senior Research Technician

Sadie brings over 15 years of experience, gained in both commercial and academic laboratories. With a background in cell culture and cell infection assays, her expertise includes confocal microscopy, immunohistochemistry, ELISA and molecular biology techniques.

Sadie joins from seven years at Napier University where she held technical roles of increasing responsibility. Prior to that gained significant experience at the University of Edinburgh and Moredun Scientific. During these roles she has contributed to projects across a range of therapeutic areas including immunology, bacteriology and cancer.

She has a BSC (Hons) in Natural Sciences from the Open University and is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Media enquiries (for Macomics)

Sue Charles, Charles Consultants

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