Douglas Kell
Douglas Bruce Kell is a British biochemist and Professor of Bioanalytical Sciences in the School of Chemistry at the University of Manchester, based in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology. He served as Chief Executive Officer of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council from 2008-2013.Education
He was educated at Hydneye House in Sussex, Bradfield College in Berkshire and St John's College, Oxford. He graduated from the University of Oxford with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biochemistry in 1975 followed by a Doctor of Philosophy in 1978 with a thesis on the Bioenergetics of Paracoccus denitrificans supervised by Stuart John Ferguson and Philip John.
From 1978 to 2002 he worked at Aberystwyth University, moving to University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in 2002 as an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council /Royal Society of Chemistry Research Chair in Bioanalytical Sciences.Research and career
Kell's primary research interests are in systems biology and computational biology. According to Google Scholar his most cited peer-reviewed research papers are in functional genomics, metabolomics and the yeast genome. He has also been involved in research to create a robot scientist in collaboration with Ross King, Stephen Muggleton and Steve Oliver as well as several projects in systems biology.
Kell's research has been funded by the BBSRC, the Medical Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. His former doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers include Pedro Pedrosa Mendes. His monograph Belief: the baggage behind our being which examines why people believe crazy things like brexit was published in 2018.Awards and honours
Kell was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to science and research. Kell is also a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and the Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
